A different Lunar New Year (2)...

Reunion dinner has been quite a low-key affair; offerings to my late grandma, followed by a spread. The dinners (and sometimes lunches) for the first few days of Lunar New Year are much more festive, since my dad has more sisters than brothers, meaning all my aunties who couldn't make it for the dinner on the Eve drop by for dinner.

Every Lunar New Year is different, and changing. Help is needed in the kitchen, however small it is. I had feared entering the kitchen during LNY meal times because I had dropped and broken a bowl once amidst the flurry of activities; I remembered my grandma having to "shield" me by preventing me from receiving any lashing-outs from anyone else.

The expectance to help out in the kitchen. On the first day, I find myself pacing back and forth the kitchen, either doing errands or waiting to be delegated tasks. At the same time, I watched both my parents cutting and chopping, and stir-frying and cooking. I'm quite sure no one forces them to do it year after year. Same with one of my aunts (always peeling away at prawn shells, something that I dreaded after doing it once), and my aunt-in-law. The cycle seems to repeat itself at this time of every year. And I find myself increasingly fusing into part of the "kitchen hands" while the meal is waited to be served outside.

At times I just stood and wondered: Time will probably come where I could be the one frying, cooking, chopping, simmering; probably for a crowd less than 20, closer to 10, but a crowd nonetheless.

Should I prepare for it now?

Like what Nic has done; learning to prepare makan.

Perhaps I shall read more recipes/cookbooks, and brush up on my knifework.

Signing off................. First, wash the chicken inside-out. Marinate it using............
RC