Happy Chinese New Year!

May the New Year bring new hope and joy to all. Wishing all a happy and prosperous Lunar New Year! 恭喜发财，身体健康，万事如意！

Corn Soup

I think this is the longest break I ever took. Hopefully it wouldn't happen so often. Sudden rush of emotions and work madness didn't help. As a result, I could only stare blankly at the screen, not knowing what to do. Fortunately, after blogging for a while, instincts take over whenever I finish cooking a dish or completed an order, else there will be no pictures. Not sure if this is considered a boon or bane as this has resulted alot of backlogs, all sitting comfortably in the draft box, waiting for the text to be fit for posting. Of course, there will always be distractions like the Facebook farming stuffs. Facebook is a such a convenient platform to post anything and reach out to an audience. More importantly, you don't have to write much. As such, I have become lazier. It is not a good sign. Though picture speaks a thousand words, some memories, like recipes, have to be captured in words to be shared with loved ones.

I'm back with more recipes which I tried during this period. I will also be posting some pictures which I took when I went for my long walks, away from the maddening crowd, thinking and keeping my sanity. As usual, I am only armed with my camera phone so pictures might not do justice.

Back to the soup. This soup was what I read about during my late teens when I was addicted to Chinese romance novels. I managed to re-create the soup based on the descriptions and it was really easy. I came to know that this soup is quite common in Taiwan, kids take to it quite well. So I experimented on my kids years later.

Corn Soup (玉米浓汤)

Ingredients
1.7 litres Chicken Stock
380g pack Del Monte Sweet Corn Cream Style
380g pack Del Monte Whole Kernel Corn, drained

150g Enoki Mushrooms, sectioned into halves or third (depending on length)

Salt and Pepper to taste *(No salt is required if you use commercial chicken stock or you have already seasoned your homemade stock)

100 ml Water
4 Tbsp Potato Starch (3 Tbsp is you prefer less thick)

150g Ham, diced
3 or 4 eggs, beaten


Garnish (optional but recommended)
Chopped Parsley
Chopped Spring Onions


Method
1) In a pot, add chicken stock and 2 types of corn. Bring to a boil.

2) Add in Enoki mushrooms, stir for about 3 to 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper if required. Lower heat. Mix starch solution, pour slowly into soup and stir till thickens.

3) Add in ham, drizzle eggs on the soup. Wait a short while before stirring again.

4) Serve with garnish.

Easy peasy, almost effortless and you can have your soup ready in no time. Letting the eggs to rest a while in the soup before stirring gives you chunkier bits of egg drops. This recipe will yield quite a big pot of soup. My kids and I are 'soup-people', so usually we have seconds. Also, I will also save it for next day's breakfast. The original recipe does not call for enoki mushrooms. I added them based on a couple of factors; one of them is adding texture. After cooking, the enoki mushrooms do not lose their crunch. I'd like to think of it as a substitute to sharks' fins. I occasionally attend vegetarian banquets and they usually substitute sharks' fins with 'tang hoon'. While it does resembles sharks' fins, the texture is nowhere near. So I told Ah Girl that this is mommy's 'poor man sharks' fins soup'. She then went on telling me why we shouldn't eat sharks' fins, to my delight. Seems that they are teaching eco-awareness early in school now.

A Time to say 'No'

Be warned that this post has nothing to do with food. Seldom have I posted negativity in this blog. But I think it is time for me to certain things off my chest. It has been weighing on me too long that I have no will to blog of other stuff at all. I do not know if this post will draw any flak. All I ask is that if you find this post offensive, don’t read it. Allow me to vent my emotions on my own blog. I do not expect you to walk in my shoes or feel how I felt.

1) Have your parents been humiliated by your in laws during the wedding preparation?
2) During the wedding dinner, your parents were being treated as if invisible?
3) Till this day, they had never spoken to each other because your in laws think your parents are holed up in 3 room flat?
4) Have your parents been accused of as snobs when the real snobs are your in laws?
5) Despite meeting your in laws only during Chinese New Year, it can still become a circus act, gossips that followed months and months later?
6) Over a period of 7 years, your daughter met her ‘so-called’ grandfather on 7 to 9 occasions?
7) You do not even know where your in laws live?
8) Have your joy of a first time mother doused with words like, ‘I already have 4 grandchildren’?
9) Have your pride of a first time home owner being trampled upon, just because you could only afford a HDB flat?
10) Your sis in law returned and insisted a bigger ang bao for her kids even though your husband was jobless and relied on your income at that time?
11) Your sis in law gave your kids clothes so worned out that even your helper didn't even want them?
12) Your sis in law gave big packets sweets and chocolates to your kids which were so close to expiry dates?
13) Have your calls for help being answered only a year later when the crisis was over, and that they came questioning if what you said a year ago were true?
14) Despite of all these, they expect you to fulfill your obligations to them when the need arises?

As the verse went, ‘A time to kill, a time to heal’. And this is my time, a time to say ‘No’. A relative from IH’s side said, ‘Do not have pride, forget and forgive and life is all about relationship, do not deprive the kids of their grandparents.’ Well, I would like to tell this self righteous relative, who has never been married, never had in laws like mine and whose womb never nurtured a child to hold her tongue.

Do not have pride - It is not about pride; it is dignity. My parents definitely did not raise me up just be treated like that. I did not receive education to be treated like that. I did not have children just so you could treat them like the way you people did.

Forgive and forget - It is so easy for you to say 'forgive and forget' when you are not at the receiving end. You may request, but the choice is up to me. In the first place, there wasn't any apology.

Life is all about relationship, do not deprive the kids of their grandparents - All their lives, my children have only known and loved one set of grandparents. At the age of 4, Ah Girl told my dad that 'the other old man' is not her grandfather because he doesn't love her. Upon hearing those words, how would a mother feel? My MIL was so indifferent towards Ah Girl and Ah Boy, perhaps they didn't even know she is the grandmother. What relationship? How can one be deprived of something which they never knew they had? My kids don't even want to be carried by them or speak to them. To them, my in laws are nothing more than strangers. Whatever love they couldn't give, my parents gave, my aunts and uncle gave, unconditionally.

There was death in the family recently and so the drama unfolds. I refused to attend the funeral and told IH that the kids are too young to go. It took them 7 years and a funeral to remember that they have a daughter in law and grandchildren somewhere. 冰封三尺，非一日之寒。If they expect instant reconciliation, they are mistaken. I may be married to IH but I am not enslaved to him or his family. I have the same earning power, I stand on even ground. Being an outcast for so long, I refuse surrender my freedom. I do not want to waste my energy on my in laws anymore. Out of sight, out of mind. I am fine as long as they stop bothering me. I am not stopping them to see the kids; that is if they ever bothered to. But don't expect me to play nice, that's hypocrisy. Brand me unfilial, unforgiving, vindictive, I don't care. I insist, call me Madam, not Missus. I do not want to carry his family name for I am my own master.