I can cook, so can you

I prepared the following speech for toastmasters, and realized it was good enough to be posted as a blog post. So here it is

They say: the way to a man's heart is thru his stomach, and the opposite is a hungry man is an angry man. Because i have heard of these sayings and my husband loves to eat, prior to being married i had hardly cooked. cooking and i were like strangers.
after i got married i endeavored to learn how to cook!
the first meal that we cooked together was after we came back from our honeymoon all excited! they say the abc soup is the easiest to cook just throw in carrots potato onions and meat to boil! we used some beef because i had seen my mother do that before. after about 15min the meat looked cooked, we scoop out the soup and lo and behold the carrots and potatos were as hard as rock and the soup tasted like water.

Since that attempt i have picked up some skills in cooking. let me share with u three tips on learning to cook.

SPA

1. Seek help
it was obvious i needed help with cooking! the first person to approach was my mother. Mothers are like walking cookbooks, they have all the dishes in their memory! They will tell u, just put some salt, put some soya sauce, how much you ask? They say just roughly put as you think is right. 

i learnt from her for soup to be tasty, u need to let it simmer for at least 30-45min, in fact longer the richer! i also learnt from her chicken stew recipe! for the chicken to be more fragrant, stir fry with garlic for a short while first before throwing in all the other ingredients and water. the other resource that came in v handy was a cooking website recommended by my friend at noobcook.com. in there were recipes for Chinese and western food.including baking steaming braising. From there I learn recipes like steamed beer prawns and cereal prawns.

2. Practice with people who encourage 

When I first started cooking, I cooked for my husband, there's only two of us, and he has to be my guinea pig. From the start he always finished the food I cooked. And sometimes he would say things like this is the best meal I have ever eaten. This really warms my heart. 

Another couple I cooked for one month after our marriage was my best friend and her husband. They finished the food and encouraged me to practice more.

3. Adapt and dare to innovate

Having sought help I tried innovating using food that I had. Last sat was my husband s bday and he requested for fish maw soup. The recipes mostly included chicken stock, which I was reluctant to use cos I'm health conscious. I bought a thermal cooker and cooked the chicken soup with mushroom overnight. In the morning when I opened the pot it was pipping hot and the soup was rich. I added the fish maw, scallops and more mushroom. The outcome was beautiful. Brown rich soup with smooth bits of fish maw, tender chicken pieces and juicy mushroom slices. We took our first bite. we both felt it was not very salty. It's ok however!

On Monday I used left over food from my mother in law -sausages, and potato and prawns from last week. I suddenly thought of the lagsana.I took the mozzarella cheese and the dill weed from my friend who left it in our kitchen, and suddenly I was able to have a meal that tasted a bit like pasta.

SPA 

I believe these principles are not just for cooking, but in any new skill u are learning,these three points will help u! I hope this has been good food for thought for you.

I can cook, so can you.

Life after marriage

I have been busy! What have I been busy with?
I have been busy learning how to be a good wife. Learning to cook, to wash, hang clothes, wipe the floors etc. I make breakfast for my husband every morning, whether it is a toasted sandwiches, cornflakes with milk or just sliced bread with kaya and milo. I try to cook at least one to two times a week whether it is simple soup noodles with yong tau fu or a full meal of rice, chicken stew, steam fish, chicken mushroom soup, stir fried vegetables, oatmeal prawns.
This is what I have been busy with!
The really wonderful thing is we learn to do these things together.

I make myself sound like a housewife, which I'm not. But I discovered that women build the house ( as what the sermon on mothers day preached), women can transform the atmosphere of their home with kindness, joy and warmth. :)

We hosted some friends at home too. Ferris mops the floor, washes the dishes etc. We are a team!

In aspects of building a family together, I smell something familiar, it is one of the simple joys of living. Same simple joys that I experienced in the village because it has to do with something so uncostly, but so expensive, the human to human relationship with each other.

I come home each day looking forward to be home. :) no matter how tired, home is where the heart is.

On the work front, it has been humbling, as I start afresh from the "bottom" in a field that is unknown to me of talent management and organizational development. Sometimes it is a bit like consultancy work. The best part is great bosses, the rewarding part is seeing yr work being appreciated, the growth part is having opportunities to try new projects, the grace part is guidance without nit picking. I struggled with the humbleness of starting afresh, but now I'm reaping the benefits of sticking it out. Being able to be home to cook is a super plus point.

I'm at a rather happy place and praying and preparing and managing expectations because life is not a bed of roses. Even then, I remind myself to smell the roses that come my way.