Last Sunday was my second time attempting to do a Sabbath. I had 2 wins, and 2 losses. First the wins:
- I managed to wake up really early and took baby Josephine cycling at Bishan Park. I realised if you wake up early enough and set out around 7 plus, the sun is not yet out in full force and you can enjoy a good 45 min or hour of cycling without getting scorched. The weather is cooling, balmy and quite pleasant overall for cycling. We saw these 2 old men who were leading a large group of elderly women and men in Tai Ji, looking very stately. One of them really had the “seh”. The radio was also playing these old-school Chinese instrument music with graceful sounding 4-word idioms like “feng huang zhan chi” and some other idiom where they moved their hands in counter-clockwise or clockwise circles like they are touching the surface of some water in a basin. Very calming and peaceful. There is a lot of stretching too, like putting your hands together and stretching up towards the sun. What I realised is that after an hour or so of hard cycling, especially that uphill slope going back home, my thighs really do feel sore and continue to have this achey burning sensation throughout the day. So lesson learnt is – not all exercise time is created equal. Exerting yourself strenuously in the morning is way better than in the rest of the day.
- The second one was how I was inspired by a surprisingly delightfully appetiser at Blossom restaurant, where we celebrated my mother-in-law’s birthday. We had this Chinese soup that looked like the usual fish maw soup, but was actually a savoury, light yet sweet soup. I asked what was this pumpkin-like thing in my soup and was told this was honeydew! It also had white fungus and a big piece of chicken. In short, it was so yummy I was inspired to try my hand at cooking it that Sunday. So I bought a kampong chicken from Toa Payoh wet market, a big orange honeydew (the crunchy kind which is less expensive), and I found some red date, honey dates and wolfberries in the freezer. I also bought a cabbage to add to the soup. And that was it. I put the washed chicken pieces, together with the dates and wolfberries in a pot of water and started boiling for about 45 minutes. And then I added the honeydew and cabbage, and boiled for another 15 minutes. As it was cooking, it smelled heavenly, like Korean ginseng soup. It looked really pro too, like those Cantonese nourishing soups your mom makes (see lovely picture below).
- I complemented this with Blue Moon organic brown rice, and a self-concocted minced meat mushroom onion stir fry. The beauty of it was that I didn’t rely on a recipe for the meat stir fry this time, but went purely by gut feel. I fried up the onions, then added the pork, fried it a bit until no more pink, and then added the cut mushrooms. Then I added dark soy sauce, a splash of Shaoxing wine, and fried some more. Then I scattered some five spice powder, and added some Thai fish sauce for measure. The end result was a salty and dark mixture which was tasty enough. Also, a key difference was that I was somehow in a very relaxed mood as I was cooking. None of that Gan-Jeongness which typically characterises my Sunday cooking mood. That helps in making the inspiration flow on how to treat the food I think - I instinctively knew what to put. Now I know how easy it was to make the fruit-meat soup, and will be trying out the papaya one, and also the apple one next! Plus the organic brown rice turned out really soft and the grains were all expanded, showing they soaked up the water (just soak for 3 hours) and was really easy to eat. My kids didn’t even realise they were eating many types of brown rice (and getting all that fibre and nutrients!). This is a meal I can make for guests in future. The insight or moment of Eureka was – the skill of a cook in creating delicious dishes out of our ingredients is a key factor in reducing food waste! All the food was demolished. Unlike my other cooking ventures… eg the barramundi we cooked until it disintegrated... how I always have leftovers when I cook the usual Sunday meals. this also harks back to my reading this Anime book on this lady who unfortunately destroys all the food she tries to cook… and how she learnt to do it properly.
What I did not manage to do, unfortunately, was to
- Journal (which is why I am making up for lost time here)
- Spend time with God, reading His Word and receiving from Him (so sad)
- Need to do better next time/Sabbath!
- Another life hack, as I was trying to brush up my boys’ Chinese composition skills in a last-ditch attempt before their exams, was that the easiest way to improve their Chinese language skills as a busy working mom with not that much time to spare sitting next to them supervising their assessment books is to speak Chinese to them only.
