Dies Horribilis

Some days we feel the pressure (of our years) more than others.

Yesterday was a bad day. It was one of those days that go down in blues songs, days that people are born on and spend the rest of their life in torment, or Clacton - it’s the same thing.

I should have stayed in bed where it was still warm from my wife’s body. The morning had held such great promise. A promise that the afternoon forbade. It all began when I was taking my ablutions. I rested on the white plastic seat and, while my body ejaculated the food it no longer needed, I started to write a quite promising cyberpunk story, based in Kuala Lumpur and London. I was into about 600 words, and gaining an oval indentation on my nether regions, when the tablet ap. crashed, taking my story with it. Of course, I had been quite intent on my writing, too intent to save as I went, not wanting to spoil that special flow of the very rare muse. And the story was flowing nicely, I thought. I felt crushed. The psychological wind had most definitely gone out of my metaphorical sails. I finished my ablutions and exited the bathroom feeling more than a little washed out.

Good, and bad things, come in threes, or so my superstitious old mother used to tell me. She was so right most of the time that my father often referred to her as an old witch. She objected to the word - old.

I was all excited. I had wanted to surprise the family by cooking lunch. I felt that it was about time that I did. I hadn't cooked for some weeks and, truthfully,  missed my own cooking too. In my wisdom, I had defrosted sleek, succulent chicken breasts. I carefully cut them into pairs, and made delicate inserts into each breast. Into each cut, I placed a dollop of chive flavoured soft cheese, and closed the gashes. The breasts were placed in a glass dish, which had been lightly brushed with a cheap virgin olive oil.

Wanting to give the preparation an Italian feel - the family like Western cooking, I made a tomato sauce with tomatoes, garlic, herbs, tomato paste, bacon, black and white pepper and the requisite amount of fluid. All was going well until the small bottle of olive oil I was using,  slipped from my oily fingers. It fell onto the waiting, hard-tiled surface. Of course it broke. I stopped what I was doing and had to clear precious virgin olive oil, and small amount of broken glass, from the work surface, and then get on with the cooking.

That was evidently not enough for Loki, prankster of the gods.

I finished the sauce and covered the waiting breasts. The uncooked meal, in a glass dish, finally found its way into our far from large oven. I set the timer, adjusted the heat, placed the glass lid on, and closed the oven door. A while later, anxious that the chicken breasts should not stick to the glass, I opened the oven door to stir the dish. That was my mistake.

Loki smiled a big mischievous smile. The largeness of the dish, and the smallness of the oven, combined to thwart my plans. The oven-hot dish stuck in the oven. I tugged. The dish's lid freed itself. It tumbled out of that steamy, punishingly hot oven and threatened to dash to the floor. At the same time, the glass dish lurched. I braced the hot dish with one oven glove and my shorts' top. Not a good idea.

The hot dish lid fell. Aha! I miraculously caught that burning hot object in my ungloved hand. Then rapidly dropped it too. Anything that comes out of an oven, cooking at 260 degrees, or thereabouts, will necessarily be, to coin a phrase - bloody hot. And it was.

I sorely burnt two fingers and my thumb, on my right hand. It had to be my right hand, because that is the hand I reserve for writing, cooking and catching extremely hot glass dish lids. The kitchen, the whole house and, quite possibly, the whole damn street resounded to a screamed Anglo Saxon word indicating base human copulation.

It was not my finest moment. I was surrounded with smashed glass and particles of hot tomato sauce. I just wanted to cry, but as there was no one around to witness my depths of upset, I resolved to just get on with it. What made it seem much worse was that I got glass in my foot. I left bloody footprints as I tried to cool burnt flesh, firstly with cold water, then with ice. Number one stepson came down the stairs. He saw my chaos and bloody foot prints, and went pale. He offered his help, but I felt too guilty and refused his kindly offer. I covered my hand in sensitive gum toothpaste - at the telephone recommendation of my absent wife, and set about clearing the kitchen, one-handed and in pain. It was a novel experience.

Saturday afternoon Writing Class was cancelled. My wife came home to a spouse sedated with painkillers, and whose right hand was thrust up like some hand double for The Mummy. I, being a man, on the arrival of my wife, immediately made the most of my injury and elicited as much sympathy as I possibly could all that evening. Copious amounts of toothpaste, then later antiseptic cream, seemed to do the job and minimalised the damage, so that I could write this today. But I have to be careful. Blisters have appeared as warning ‘hot spots’. I’ll probably not cook for a while. Cooking can be dangerous if in the wrong hands.

My dies horribilis is at an end. I was lucky not to have been born under bad sign.

A Night in Asgard

The Chua Brothers breakfast of fish ball noodle soup, yong tau foo and a bowl of three kinds of noodle, accompanied by thick Malaysian indigenous coffee was a far cry from Tiptree marmalade on toast, and Earl Grey tea in an aging English seaside. That fateful morn, stomach rumbling as breakfast was not included in our deal at the hotel, I was led into the bowels of Kuala Lumpur's China Town by my 'I don't do mornings' wife, who nevertheless did that morning.

This is the very same woman who, bright-eyed and not exactly bushy tailed, but nevertheless excited, had grasped my arm tightly, the previous night, and squealed when Thor, god of thunder, was beating up the bad guys attacking all he held dear at Times Square, near Bukit Bintang. It was the very same she who drooled at that thunder god's naked chest, asking in a seemingly casual way - ‘who was that actor playing Thor’.

Over breakfast, in that backwater Malaysian Chinese eatery, I watched one elderly chap peeling those tiny, salty, dried fish called ikan bilis. Meticulously he disposed of the tiny silvery heads and black innards, then he bagged the remainder up ready to be fried or used as a flavoring in soup/congee. Noodles were being blanched all around as a tall, young, Chinese beggar, all crinkled long dark hair and raggedy clothes, encouraged diners to give him a hand out. None did. Not five feet from where that disheveled outcaste was standing, begging, offerings of oranges and red coloured bread (pau) lay on the more blatantly red Taoist alter. This led me to two rash assumptions, 1) beggars become invisible in Malaysia, and 2) Malaysian Psychiatric care is patchy.

The daily November rain had held off, but Kuala Lumpur's humidity drenched my Cambodian cotton shirt anyway, just to prove a point to this son of another soil. Exiting that noodle house, we took the long way round, back to the hotel, and back to the sleepy son who could not rise for breakfast. The night’s stay was a one off. It was a chance for those in the family who enjoyed swimming, to swim, and for those who preferred a reasonably good (e)book, to watch.

The Swiss garden Hotel was comfortable enough, but a tad far from the fun of China Town that, and the inconvenience of having to wander the hotel finding what’s what, as that incarnation of Swiss Gardens International has two towers and numerous confounding exits. 

Our Wild Day Out

The Chinese Hokkien restaurant - Restoran kuan hwa kuala selangor sat adjacent to the River Selangor, in Selangor state, Malaysia, and specialised in sea and river food. 

It was a bright Sunday during the Hindu celebration of Diwali. We travelled in convoy around Kuala Lumpur, stopping briefly for a rest-stop at Aunty Foo's Cafe, to enjoy a clean restroom environment and shudder at her prices for dark local nectar.

A constant, welcome, breeze wafted from a river the colour of tea and, surprisingly, there was only the scent of food cooking, not mud. While mud-dwelling crabs carried one large claw aloft, skitting on the approach of birds, our cut coconuts arrived sloshing with watery goodness. I reluctantly drew my attention away from the engaging mud crustaceans and refocussed on my hosts, family and the meal to come.

The meal was to be a treat. And the day, a relaxing one, eating and soaking up the chilling vibes, while being adjacent to the rice-paddy wilds of Selangor - the Malaysian state closest to Kuala Lumpur. If time permitted, we were to buy fish at the local fishing village and go on to buy rice direct from the buildings concerned with its production in the middle of the rice growing paddy fields.

A brusque waitress hurried small bowls of diced garlic and finely chopped green chillies - condiments. An oval plate of fried lettuce appeared next, and who says you can’t fry lettuce, they do it all the time here. The veg is the quickest to cook, hence coming first. It was quickly followed by another oval dish, this time of Bamboo clams (aka Atlantic Jackknife clams) looking for all the world like the hand-piece to a cut-throat razor. The meat was long, like pale worms, but the chili sauce with dried chillies and spring onions helped it along. My wife stayed clear of this one, claiming it to be unappetizing (by looks alone).

Next came tiny crispy fried squid, which were exactly that, and none more that an inch-and-a-half long. More veggies followed - a

gracious mixture of green beans, okra, aubergine and that pungent Malaysian favourite - petai. Petai is the vegetable equivalent of the Durian fruit. That is to say petai makes you fragrant, in the worse possible way. After eating that pungent bean your bodily discharges have a peculiar scent, this can last a few days and it is all with thanks to 1,2,4-trithiolane with a little help from hydrogen sulfide, ethanol and acetaldhyde, apparently. Petai is also called ‘stink bean’ for a very good reason.

The meal’s fish dish was a little disappointing. It was cutlets of fish unable to swim in a brown sauce loaded, as it was, with garlic. Of the dishes tasted that day, the fish was the least flavoursome. However, the meal’s crowning glory arrived in short shrift. Two more dishes - first a sweet and sour mud-crab, then Malaysia’s famous ‘chili crab’. The former was

balanced so perfectly that neither the sweet nor the sour dominated, but worked in perfect harmony. The latter was caressed with curry leaves as well as black pepper and other spices to make that crab rich and a little dry and sour in taste - no doubt because of the tamarind used. Deep fried ‘man tou’ buns lay crisply brown on the platter, and were perfect for scooping up the sauces of both crabs, The buns disappeared extremely quickly, once placed on our Arthurian round table. The Tom Yum (prawn) soup came in another coconut. This tom yum was

crammed with good sized prawns, and was traditionally spicy but, thankfully, not as sweet as some I’ve tasted.

We had forgotten that it was the first day in the Chinese lunar month. The (Chinese) fisherman had not fished. There were no fish to purchase at the fishing village. Instead, some sketched and some wrote, whiling away the time and letting that superb Hokkien meal digest. Cats, anxious for fish, walked away disappointed. My eyes were getting heavy. The meal, slowly digesting, was bringing on the afternoon lethargy. I was feeling like some gigantic anaconda after swallowing a goat, though to my knowledge there were no anacondas nearby and the goats had been already swallowed up by humans - at a previous religious festival.

Then we were off. My wife drove. The two boys and I let Hypnos blanket us with sleep as we were taken away from the fishing village, and out towards the rice paddies. It was still hot outside, and still bright. We could feel the heat of the sun trying to penetrate the air-conditioning. It was a struggle, but the car’s internal temperature eventually won out.

It had seemed like a thousand years ago, that I landed at Penang airport, and was transported, at the break of day, through my first ever paddy fields (in Keddah state, Malaysia). I had been in awe. I had never seen rice growing before. Wheat and corn yes, even barley but never rice and, at that very moment, the complete otherness of Malaysia had hit me. As I awoke from my partial Selangor slumber, the car stopped. We were on a small road running through fields of growing rice. The sky was a perfect blue. The clouds grouped as if for photographs, and the rice paddy was green. It was a brief idyll. Echoes of Lou Reed ran through my head.

The next stop was at Cap Asas (Basic Brand) PLS - the rice producer’s Sunday rice market, which was surrounded by their rice fields, and accessible only by those small roads. Rice was being sold in 5kg and 10kg plastic bags. Posher (pearl) rice, white or brown, was in briquettes of 2kg. It was a veritable hive of activity. Bags of rice seemed to fly from their stacks and into waiting cars, SUVs etc. The day was beginning to get overly long. We forsook the offer of yet more food, and a beach, and began to wander back to home and hearth, if we had a hearth but, in Malaysia, hearths are redundant. We slept. It was another lazy Sunday behind us, without rainbows. Our wild day out had been tamed and put back in its cage. 

Climbing Tiger Mountain without strategy

I had dallied for two long years. Finally, girding my ancient loins, I braved the walk. My intrepid wife led me up a rather steep path and into the Malaysian jungle. I had been assured that it would be a walk, not a climb. I am far too unfit for climbs. We rounded a bushy corner,  replying to greetings given by returning walkers, and there it was. It was, to all intents and purposes, a climb, but to my wife merely a walk. True we were walking, but uphill,  using knee power to transport our bodies upward, now I call that a climb.

I had no problem at all watching my wife's superbly shaped buttocks as she climbed, sorry walked. The problem came when I was trying to watch them and climb at the same time. Heaven on earth had to be deferred to ensure that I didn't reach actual Heaven long before I was ready.

We trudged on for some time, manoeuvring over rusty chalk and, occasionally,  marble. Green and sometimes purple ferns watched as we traversed that mountain. It was no Tiger Mountain,  though there were plenty of Chinese. All kinds of young, and not so young, uphill strollers, strolled uphill, but this strategic Tiger Mountain contained no Brian Eno, or opera.

Sunbeams lit lazy mist somewhere half way. A bird let rip with a hearty halloween trill, and scared me half to death. Leeches were conspicuous by their absence,  which was a blessing, but the humidity was relentless within that shady forest. I was out of breath. I had 'good morninged' far to many climbers,  and forgot to save some breath for myself.

I received some strange looks by fellow yet indigenous travellers. One nearly fell of the mountain as she gave a double-take. Then I remembered the legend of Jim Thompson, the American who disappeared into the Malaysian jungle, in Cameron Highlands. She must of thought I were he.

I survived. My dear, fit, wife informed me that we had only gone half way, and that next time we could go all the way. Next time, I thought, there would be a next time, head slap.

Dating Day

The boys were otherwise occupied. My wife and I took time away from our various computer screens and drove down to the mall. It was the early part of the week. The Gardens,  Kuala Lumpur, was sparsely occupied, quiet, like all good malls should be.

We crossed into Mid Valley and immediately saw the change. It was older than The Gardens, more crowded, the toilets in need of repair and upkeep. My wife was buying art materials. I wandered, lonely, but not at all cloud like, looking for a place to be quiet again. There was this chap, sitting at a table, in Starbucks, Borders. He was bending down, reading a book placed on the floor.  I watched him for a few minutes, wondering his reasoning.

The air was warm, not hot, my eyes were longing to close, the coffee keeping them open. My thoughts drifted to Knightsbridge, other coffees and other times, seeing black cabs instead of the Malaysian blue and red.

England had suffered a storm. It was in Malaysian newspapers. I had said that was the problem thinking of holidaying in the UK during Winter. The Malaysian Prime Minister had made noises of disappointment,  as his visit to Manchester was cancelled.  United breathed a sigh of relief and went off to the pub.

I remembered the great storm, back in 1987. That too was in October (16th) Rail tracks were blocked, roads too. I silently praised lesser known deities and took the day off from the sign maker's where I reluctantly worked, just out from university.

The tree outside our two bedroom house fell, luckily missing eveything important. Winds whipped and prevented pedestrian transport. We were home bodies that day,  with me wanting that devastation to continue, legitimately keeping me from work, caught in some J.G.Ballard dystopian tale where I would be the hero instead of a sign designer. But the next day all was right with the world and my heroic fantasies were revealed as just that.

Back in my current reality, the Malaysian midday was characteristically bright outside. The cappuccino - cinnamon.  My wife returned bearing books, my reverie was broken. Our dating day continued.

Taking Teochew to Task

The rain had held off. We were at the Chao Yue Xuan restaurant, River Valley Road, Singapore. Our most generous hosts proffered the 4pax set menu B, and who were we to complain. Chinese tea flowed like China’s Yangtze (Changjiang) oh so long River. Helpful servers served to the extent that I was constantly dodging their helpfulness as if afflicted with some neurological disorder, and apologising.  Well, I am British. Every time my serviette drifted to the floor, a server swooped and deposited it back on my lap until, that is, about the 100th time when she gave up and, not surprisingly, plonked it down on the table a tad harshly I thought.

Talk meandered. It was about what we were doing, about what they were doing, what we had done, what they had done and where my wife's family came from in China. Oh! and that was the reason that we were there, at the Chao Yue Xuan restaurant, with my wife's aunt and uncle - it serves Teochew (Chaozhou) cuisine.  Teochew (Chinese) dialect speaking clientele get all excited about their regional food. Native tongue food, food from home and, others like me ready for practically anything, get all excited too.

A few Malaysia decades earlier, my wife’s family had migrated from the eastern region of Guangdong province in China, and settled in the northern region of, what was then, Malaya. Over time the specifics were lost but the dialect and the longing for their cuisine remained. Seemingly Teochew cuisine has similarities with both that of Fujian (Hokkien) and with cuisines from Canton, while also managing to tuck some uniqueness up its embroidered, silken jacketed sleeve. We had tried Teochew food before, in Malaysia, and I really cannot say that I was over impressed. I smiled a weak smile, and expected the worse.

The first dish came. It was cold crab. We British are used to having cold crab. Crab salads are a speciality of my favourite British coastline - that of north Norfolk. Cromer, and its surrounds, produces some of the very best crab and crab salads in England (personal opinion). No, it wasn’t crab salad, but just crab, and not just cold but chilled in its shell. My heart sank. It was a WTF moment. Wearily I plunged into the crab, tearing it and snipping at it like some dog baiting a bear. I was informed that I

Scallop

really should dip that hard won crab into the vinegar sauce provided. Vinegar brought more memories of dear old Blighty - seasides, cockles, winkles and mussels all dowsed with tart vinegar, but I was in Singapore and they were asking me to act as if I had a ‘kiss-me-quick’ hat balanced on my noggin and a stick of rock in my hand.

Wearily and warily I dunked the crab in that vinegar. I looked around. Three sets of eyes were set on me. Will I pass the test, or will I flunk, forever to hang my head in shame in Teochew circles for all eternity. I dunked and raised a silent prayer - ‘oh please don’t this be as awful as it seems. Oh please don’t let that awfulness show on my face’. I raised said crab to my taut lips, shoved it past my teeth and into my anxious mouth. Hello, says I to myself. That’s not half bad. No really, really, quite nice. Good grief, I inwardly exclaimed - I like this. The crab, despite the shell difficulties and my inherent laziness, disappeared and I was left looking for more. And that was only the start.

Shark's Fin Soup

I had not realised that the next dish was on the menu. I hadn’t had it before, as soups are not really my thing, but there it was, scooped into my dish, the infamous and terribly over-rated Shark’s Fin Soup.The Chao Yue Xuan restaurant version was named Braised Four treasure Shark’s Fin Soup. I’ll refrain from anymore comment except to say, for me - they need not have bothered. It was something glutinous for the gluttonous and had barely any taste for me, even with copious amounts of soy sauce. 

Abalone

 Stewed Fresh Yoshihama Abalone with Japanese Mushroom made me forget my aberration with fin of a shark and eased us into the Pan Fried Scallop, which was minimal and tasty, or was tasty because it was minimal, I’m not quite too sure. The chef, or chef’s minions, knew their stuff and the scallop was fried to perfection, but it was all over far too fast.

Soon Hock

The Deep Fried Soon Hock Fish, aka Mabled Glory or Ghost Fish, arrived to an internal applause. Four pairs of eyes lit up - mine too because I had had this fish recently in Malaysia and simply loved its crispiness and freshness. I was fortunate as my fellow diners steered clear of the fish head and tail. I didn’t. I crunched and munched and enjoyed my hosts’ inquisitiveness. This Gwai Lo knows how to eat fish head and tail eh! Good grief! Or some such exclamation in Chinese. 

The Pan Fried Noodle with Baked Prawn with Superior Sauce was a great name, but in reality a let down. I muttered that if I wanted dry noodles I could have opened a packet of Maggie Mee myself. The

Pan fried Noodle

prawns needed a superior sauce, but didn’t get one. It was all up to the dessert to save the day. Mango Pudding didn’t. It felt like an after-thought. It certainly did not feel very Chinese, or a very inventive fusion food. Orh Nee (taro paste with ginko nuts and coconut milk) would have been more authentic and have saved the day. It was a sad ending, even sadder as our host and hostess had to leave for an evening flight to other parts even more exotic than Singapore.

Mango Pudding

It was an interesting sampling of the restaurant's dishes. It was an introduction, but I prefer my plate a little fuller than that which nouvelle cuisine offers. Next time we are in Singapore I think that we might seek out a less salubrious, but equally Teochew, restaurant and dine a little heartier and a little less expensively than we did at the Chao Yue Xuan restaurant, River Valley Road, Singapore. 

Charity Widower

Women are often referred to as golf widows, football widows or some such euphemism relating to women being deserted by men for huge chunks of time, and emotion. You may not realise, but men too become widowed, by women who spend a colossal amount of time and energy outside of the home, and therefore away from their husbands.

I am a charity widower. Deserted by my very well intentioned wife, volunteering, creating events and raising funds for a respectable arts and children’s charity. The loneliness of that infamous long distance runner is nothing compared to the emotional distancing a charity widower feels. He, after all, has lost his wife to a good cause, none better, charity, kids and the age old argument of giving back.

For charity widowers it would seem churlish for us to complain. She, our beloved spouse is, after all, doing something good, something commendable, something worthy of all the praises available to be heaped upon her. Ah, but there’s the rub, the two-way cutting sword. Spouse’s time is not infinite. Peter has to be robbed, however nicely, to pay Paul. Lucky Paul. Time swallowed up by organising this and that event, facilitating the event, the travel, the volunteering of their services in the service of their chosen charity all denudes the long suffering husband/family of her warmth, affection, and yes her presence too.

Of course I am not alone. My wife is but one of, perhaps, millions. The whole kit and kerboodle of charities, and indeed Social Work, was founded by such women beavering away with their chosen worthies. Charities would not exist without such women, though sometimes I wish that it were possible for just one to exist without the constant attention of my wife. To be fair, she was already involved with charity work before I met her. I knew what I was taking on. At least, I thought I did, but didn’t. I never imagined that there would be times that I would sit alone, in hotel rooms, waiting for her return, or stand and watch while she went about her ‘doing good’. Perhaps it would not have been so bad, maybe I wouldn’t miss her as much if she didn’t also have a very demanding job, which swallows up huge chunks of her time. Men like me feel like ‘also rans’ at some important meet, or Vice Presidents/executives rather than CEOs.

Choices for we charity widowers are severely limited. We can put and and shut up - the chosen or preferred choice. We can object and live with the consequences - a lifetime knowing that you dragged your wife away from something important to her, or walk away. The final choice appears somewhat ridiculous as the argument runs that you want more of her time, not less. Or, we can sit in a hotel room, in Singapore, and write. I chose the latter.