from bak chang, with love

spent the weekend helping my mum with the making of...........the dumpling. she must have made more than 200 and my hands reek from the oily familiar stench. kind of puts me off dumpling for a little while. hence, also the absence of visual to share with you. to enrich your imagination, go to the nearest market and buy one, steam it for 20mins, unwrap the leaves and place it next to you, whilst you read this entry.

you know when the game tetris was previously in fashion, and you spent the whole day trying to make the blocks fit the puzzle, then you dream of it when you close your eyes? yes, that was me and the dumplings on saturday. after trying to fold the leaves in such and such a way so that i can get the 'socially-correct' triangular shape, i can see it happening in front of me when i close my eyes. give me a break. :-) by sunday, i have gone over the deep end.

i never knew how to wrap those little pyramid-shape things for the longest time. i could only see my mum slave over them year after year, while i stand by helplessly. one year, as my mum got older, i figured that if i can conquer an mba, i can conquer this! and with a very technical mind, i applied the science of logic, physics and domestic dexterity. i tried and tried and tried. finally, they looked semi-triangle and the most important of all, they didn't fall apart. triumph!

that was then. the next year, my grandad passed away. so, we stopped making the dumplings for 3 years. erm, don't ask me why. the higher authorities deemed so and we, the small fries, follow. after the required 3 years of intermission, we continued, only to have my grandma pass away the year following that. so, another 3 years of refrain. this is my first year back again.

come dumpling time, i seem to be full of theories and philosophies. i guess it's because it's a time-old culture that is fast becoming a dying art. i may have learnt the very basic skill of wrapping them but i have never picked up the process of preparation; the ingredients-shopping, the cooking, the frying and the marinating. without the core process, the skills i have acquired is as useless. it is something that i would love to pass on to my children. a food and skill steeped in culture and ethnology.

hubby has the time-old opinion that women are more perfect if they have mastered this art. chauvinistic? *shrugs shoulder*. he's entitled to his opinion. but you will find that almost all dumplings are made by women (except for those made by restaurants). why? most men will claim that the most renowned chefs are male, yet why is this a women's domain? because it requires patience, endurance and lots of love. much like motherhood. it is also back-breaking and thankless.

so, when you pop that warm piece of glutinous rice in your mouth, have you thought of all the love that went into making it? (er....except for those who have bought theirs from the market). the warmth from the dumpling as it makes its way down your throat reminds you that there is still someone out there who loves you.