Food for Thought

I can whip up a mean bolognaisse sauce from scratch, meaning I do not use those ready-made goo that come in huge jars you see on the supermarket shelves.

And my family would gobble up my spag dish in no time whenever we have it for dinner.

In fact my girls love pasta, especially fettucine carbonara, the creamier the better. I swear there's no Italian in our bloodline where this partiality could come from. But come to think of it, wasn't it Marco Polo who brought the noodle from China to Italy and called it pasta?

Hmmm.... the girls love kwayteow kungfu too. Obviously it's the chinese in them, though they do not look as chinkee as me. Ah well, you can take the chinese out of the noodle, but you simply can't take the noodle out of the chinese and their descendants - no matter how diluted the genes are.

As I contemplated making spagbog again last week, Bang says "tak sedap lah Yang, olio yang hari tu lagi best".

Olio yang hari tu was Spaghetti Aglio e Olio - olive oil and garlic sauce pasta with shrimps - served at Shasha and Zuzey's Raya Open House.

Now Bang is a meat freak who gives fish a disdainful jeling when he spies it among the other dishes on the table.

My dear Bang, aglio olio with beef is blasphemous to the Itai's and I'll sure hear ground-shaking mammmamias all the way from the boot of the Mediterranean, should I cook it.

But kesian punya pasal I consulted with Zuzey on the possibility. Yup I had on occasion been in two minds about certain plans pasal kesian.

Zuzey's a very talented cook inheriting skills from both her Mum and Dad. Chicken Rice and Nasi Briyani are her signatures...Yummm.

"Well maybe you cooouuuuld.... pre-fry the minced beef with some pepper in a little olive-oil before adding it to the already-mixed olio"

"What if I throw in some curry-leaves for some fusion taste? They do it at Strawberry Fields you know, it kinda cuts the muak feel"

I hear aiyoo ma aiyoo pa rumbling from the sub-continent and more mammmamia's

"Hmmmmmm.... my cousin-sister does that too and yeah ........ it's OK .... I guess... You can also use canned-tuna-in-oil too if you like".


Zuzey used shrimps that day. I don't mind tuna. But the young man must have his meat.


Well guess that's it. I'll try whipping up a batch of beef olio and another of tuna for tomorrow's pot-luck. There'll be other food so we won't go hungry should these do not turn out as desired.

And forget the curry leaves as well. We can't kill the subtle oregano flavour with boisterous kariplay, can we?

According to the grape-vine, there'll be Shepherd's Pie too. Yummmm!