Food Show And Chinese Cuisine

The other day, my children and I watched  some wonderful authentic  cooking which was telecasted on one of our  favourite food  channel.Watching the  program  took  me  to several places and to a totally different culture.A culture which reveres in upholding customs and traditions. More so it let me virtually wander across to the land which prides on the  great wall and much more.Furthermore just discussing views and opinions about  their food  can get your  taste buds tantalized.
Chinese cooking sketches back since times gone by and now have become more and more popular in other parts of the world.The Chinese  pride themselves on eating an extensive range of foods. Chinese dishes are often  prepared in bite-sized pieces, to make it easy for   picking and shoving into the mouth.They also love to use chopsticks at the table. Traditional Chinese cuisine is also based on opposites  balancing hot with  cold, pickled with fresh and spicy with mild. They  also take pleasure in  eating exotic stuff. Many would go out of the way to taste some extraordinary speclalities like snakes,insects and bugs. Well!Well! Count me out please! I‘vd rather have the pleasure of watching them creeping and crawling  in and out of a mud –splattered backyard than savor them 'barbecued' and  in my platter all oozing  with sauces and dressings.

Food shows are a  motivation for foodies like me.They help us cultivate different skills and techniques in the kitchen and in our cooking styles. Learning to cook  food other than our staple foods  is itself  a great achievement .Years ago ,as a young girl, I used to watch  a cooking show called Yan Can cook,a program hosted by a young Chinese foodie/chef who did a lot of humorous acts while demonstrating his gastronomic know-hows.I loved watching him cook delicious  meals (the usual kind of food –not the exotic type). This show was very popular in most homes because of his exclusivity: cooking and performing  comic acts.At the end of the show he would sign off with his ever famous  line 'If Yan can cook, so can you.’.That  one liner, I believe, was in some way the motivation behind my interest in  cookery.However only after I  got married I put my skills into practice.Initially, I  had  tried a few of the simple dishes this master chef had presented on the show, but regretfully the dishes never really reached up to mark or came anywhere close to  them.All the same I never gave up.Learning through  trial and error, I somehow  managed to pass the  experimental tests ( the judges through out have been my children and hubby).I am regretful that I never mastered Chinese cooking but in spite of everything, I am still  grateful for that ‘cooking show', which paved the way significantly in  arousing my interest in cooking.And  from  being an  edgy cook with a great deal of kitchen disasters,I can now  pompously say  I have gained  some confidence and   occasionally  serve  delectable food to my guests at home.

Ahh!! I see the glimmer in my children’s eyes, an optical expression I often witness when I make an assurance.Yes! I did promise them to spend more time reviving  Chinese  delights from the food channel.


                                        Chinese Food In Saudi Arabia

Prawns coated in batter and fried 

Fried Noodles

Chicken Corn Soup

                                      

A Visit To The Book Fair And A Lesson Learnt

Last evening , we went to  a book fair which was held in our locality. My children had got the brochures , which had being distributed at school. As soon as my  husband said that we would be able to attend, the children, especially the sons, got so excited about it and were chattering non-stop about what books they should be buying and what latest books  they were going to select. Lately I have been observing their mind-set during their spare time, I couldn’t be possibly  imagining this , but I feel they are  showing less interest in playing with their toys and have gradually shifted their interests in reading books. Which is a good sign indeed! A sign of development I should say, although  their reading is focused mainly towards the  animated characters that they have been  watching on television,  for most part of their growing years. As a parent ,who loves reading as well ,seized   this  opportunity with the intent of  encouraging them and showing  support towards  their latest inclination.  What is more important is as they grow older , they would with all possibility changed the genre and would be  reading more advanced books.

 By the way, there was so much to browse and I didn’t know where to begin .Eventually I ended up buying a few too.The best part of going to the fair was when I  got an honest opinion (which I least anticipated) from my second daughter, who is fourteen and  a vegetarian by all means. She  suggested a latest copy of a vegetarian’s recipe book, She felt I needed to buy that particular book , in order to experiment new variety and  give flavour to the  vegetable dishes that I have been preparing for her for the past one year. In other words ,she  was  bored eating the same kind of  stuff everyday . What a change of twist! The whole concept of going to the fair was to motivate the youngsters  to move forward in their  reading skills. Who would have thought that I’ll learn a few lessons as well ! Children! what would we do  without them! J

Time And Tide Wait For None

This morning there was an electrical shortage in the computer and it  was immediately sent to the  technician to have it fixed. Actually I didn’t know what to do, to while away ,till  it was being  done. With the children gone to school, the house was  very quiet. That’s when I began to hear a different kind of ‘noise pollution’.The pigeons coo, coming from atop the  TV antenna and the angry mews of the hungry cats ,which was imminent from the trash can. In fact I also actually  heard the sound of the wind sweeping across this chilly morning. It was  always a figment of my imagination to envisage  the wind to whisper softly  and sweetly as it passed by, but this was nothing like that. This was something like a howl, a scolding perhaps by mother nature for not appreciating the beautiful morning. On the whole this temporary halt from my computer time, made me become conscious and enjoy the mornings’ glory, which  otherwise would have completely gone to  waste.

- The time missed or the time wasted is the time lost forever-.