Category Archives: Bits and Pieces: Friends

Cooking with Rohani Jelani at Bayan Indah and a Gathering of Old Friends

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It was the period of Al Jarreau, Journey and The Police.  I was 13 years old.  I had just come back from school with a message for my parents.

“They’re not offering Commerce in my school,” I said, and promptly burst into tears.

My parents didn’t understand the intensity of my emotions and dismissed it as a phase all teenage girls go through.  After all, what could possibly be so terrifying about cooking classes?

In the old days, female students were streamlined into “Commerce” and “Home Science” depending on their inclination.  Having grown up in a predominantly male environment, I had an aversion for cooking, sewing and cleaning, all of which were covered in the Home Science stream.  As I scanned through my Home Science text book that night, I shivered.  I read Chapter 1, Safety Measures on Using a Stove.  I burst into tears again.  They’re going to marry me off early,  I thought to myself.  When I eventually nodded off to sleep, my dreams were filled with visions of child brides, toothless husbands and exploding stoves.

As fate would have it, within a week, the school had a new teacher who could teach Commerce, and all students were quickly segregated to the respective streams based on their primary school grades.  It was a simplistic method and an overly easy way out for the administrative office – the ones in the first two classes were put in Commerce, while the rest were put in Home Science, presumably so that they could be married off easily upon completion of high school.  As a naive 13-year-old, I didn’t think too much of it.  All that mattered to me was that I didn’t have to study Home Science.  In one careless, uncomplicated decision, my fate was sealed.  I studied Commerce, went on to become an accountant, and got married at the ripe old age of 32.  I also did not encounter any exploding stoves.

******

My friend, Adle, who currently lives in Canada, initiated our class reunion.  Once she got the ball rolling, Janice and Ivy managed to get flight tickets from Australia and France, and soon after that, we got the locals to commit to a date.  Other than a grand get-together at Simply Mel’s, a smaller group of us decided to spend the day cooking at Bayan Indah.  With the help of Yvonne, our Malaysian liaison, we locked in a date with Rohani Jelani and gave her a list of dishes we wanted to learn how to cook.  Over the years, we had all developed a mutual appreciation for good food and, via Facebook, we shared our love for it.  As such, it made perfect sense to consolidate our discussions and organise a private class with the affable Rohani Jelani.  I have said so much of her and her classes in previous posts (see links below), and I will not hesitate in recommending Bayan Indah to those who want to learn hands-on cooking in a warm, friendly environment.

******

And so we toiled over the stove as we whipped up ayam percik, briyani, rendang, fish curry, char koay teow and tako, not always with the ease of experienced chefs, but with laughter, camaraderie and intimacy that only old friends can understand.

Thirty years later, without the benefit of attending Home Science classes, it feels like we’ve finally come full circle.

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Bayan Indah’s website – www.bayanindah.com

Past posts on Bayan Indah:
– Cooking Class with Rohani Jelani at Bayan Indah
– A Second Cooking Class at Bayan Indah

 

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Chicken rendang

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Table setting

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Ayam percik

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Janice working the blender

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Char koay teow

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Yvonne and Ivy looking chirpy

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Fish curry

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Easy briyani

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Rohani Jelani with Adle

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A birthday cake for Rohani

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A satisfying labour of love

Argentina: Voy a extrañar tomar mates con vos

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“They drink this foul drink called mate in Argentina!” my friend cautioned me before I left for Buenos Aires.

I had read about mate in my travel guidebooks, and I was curious to try it. Mate (pronounced: maa-tay) is an infusion made by steeping mate leaves in hot water in a hollowed out gourd. The person then sips the drink through a metal straw called a bombilla (which has a sieve-like contraption at the bottom end to prevent bits of the leaves from getting sucked up).

It wasn’t the drink that fascinated me, but the communal ritual behind it.  According to my guidebook, drinking mate in Argentina is a social activity with its own set of revered rules.  The host prepares the infusion by pouring hot, but not boiling, water into the gourd which is already filled with mate leaves, and then proceeds to drink it up.  Once finished, the host refills the gourd with hot water and passes it to the next person in the group.  When that person drinks up all the liquid, the person hands the gourd back to the host, and the process continues with the third person.  This stops only when a person says “gracias” signifying that he has had enough.

 In Argentina, it is not uncommon to see people walking around with mate cups in their hands, and a flask hanging on their shoulder.  Throughout our travel in the vast country, we saw families and groups of friends congregating in parks to drink mate.  It was wholesome and heartwarming and reminded me of the old days when we’d have picnics at the beach in Penang, huddled over tiffin carriers filled with nasi lemak and sambal ikan bilis cooked by mum earlier in the day, as bits of fried peanuts spilled into the white sand.

“When a person offers you mate, you take it, because it signifies an offer of friendship.”

With only two weeks in the country, and because of our inability to communicate in Spanish, I knew that the chances of building lasting friendships in Argentina was slim, and with it, the opportunity to drink mate faded.

It was at a restaurant where I first tried mate.  I was offered coffee, tea or mate.  I grinned happily and chose mate.  It came in a teabag in a cup of hot water.  It didn’t look anything like the pictures.  I drank it anyway, expecting a life altering experience, a moment that I would remember for eternity, if you will.   I blinked.  It tasted like green tea.  Was that it?  I felt cheated.

We were in a bus one day with a bunch of twenty-something Argentinians (and a Swedish) when one of them, a petite girl with long glossy brown hair, hopped over to where we were seated and introduced herself.  “I’m Giuliana,” she said.  Little did she know that those two words would be my redemption.

“Would you like to drink mate?” she asked.

“Would I like to drink mate? Would I?? Would I?!?!” I screamed hysterically within.  My long wait was over.

“Yes, please,” I said aloud, with typical gentle Asian politeness.  She didn’t sense my desperation.

She brought over a cup brimming with a thick sludge of tea and water.  As I sucked on the straw, the full flavour of the mate hit me.  It was bitter, but there was also a strong grassy flavour.  I loved it.  I smiled and handed over the cup to Giuliana.  We drank mate for the remaining part of our journey with our new friends and shared stories about our travels, Malaysia, our food, our people, our Twin Towers.

I brought home a couple of kilograms of mate leaves together with my very own mate gourd and bombilla with the intention of carrying on this ritual of social interaction.  Nowadays, I drink it often with friends.  There is no fixed time.  After dinner.  After a dip in the pool.  Before lunch.  While singing along to Spanish songs till the wee hours of the morning.  And we share stories of our lives.

A friend once remarked that if you open yourself up to the possibility that even the vagrant on the street is able to surprise you with tales of his life’s journey, your own life will be richly enhanced.  I believe it to be true.  And these mate days, these mate nights, they’re fuel for the camaraderie we share as our lives subtly weave into each other’s to create new memories.

Voy a extrañar tomar mates con vos.

A Wedding and A Wine Makers Dinner at Sage, The Gardens, KL

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Wedding cake by Just Heavenly

Can we pretend that airplanes
In the night sky
Are like shooting stars
I could really use a wish right now
Wish right now, wish right now
Can we pretend that airplanes
In the night sky
Are like shooting stars
I could really use a wish right now
Wish right now, Wish right now

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A couple of weeks back, my friend recommended that I use the above song as my caller ringtone, primarily as a joke, but little did he know that it aptly reflected my mood this month.  I will not pretend that I have been struggling through the month; “struggling” implies fighting, but in my case, my time has been filled with activities, from planning surprise parties to lavish dinners and mostly, plain hard work.  The thing about work is that it occupies my mind all the time and while I am okay about spending a couple of hours eating and socialising with friends, I wrestle with but am inundated with the idea that I am “disloyal” to my work when I sit at my computer and attempt to put a few words down on my blog.  My many attempts to write a blog post these couple of weeks have left me staring at a sentence or two in draft mode because I then stray to some unfinished work-related document instead.  It’s Sunday today, I’ve just finished 6 hours of productive work, so I figured I’d reward myself with a couple of hours of blogging and reading blogs.

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Sage has always been one of my favourite restaurants for its consistent delivery and excellent service. So when I received an invitation from my friends, J & H, to attend their wedding reception at Sage, I was thrilled.  The gorgeous cake you see above was made by Just Heavenly; not only was it a sight to behold, it also tasted amazing.   My constant gripe (something that H also mentioned in one of his many speeches that night) is that most wedding cakes are just pretty on the outside but the cake is generally dry and inedible.  Not this one.  The cake was a moist and delicious butter cake which I had no qualms gobbling down.  Great job, Just Heavenly.   Dinner consisted of a tasting menu of Tranche of Yellowtail with Avruga Caviar and Akame Herb, Cream of Porcini Soup with White Truffle Oil, Roasted Atlantic Seabass with Prawn and Alaskan King Crab Sauce (alternatively, Grain Fed Black Angus Beef with Mashed Potato, Meaux Mustard) and Mango Melba with Vanilla Ice Cream.  To sum it all in three words, O-M-G! (excuse my lack of verbosity) To the few of us who opted for the Seabass, we were rewarded with a mindblowing experience.  The sauce in which it was served was bursting with the flavour of shellfish.   I am still orgasmic at the recollection of that meal.

WINE MAKERS DINNER – WYNDHAM ESTATE

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2003 George Wyndham Cabernet Merlot

Another meal at Sage saw the pairing of Wyndham Estate wines with an exquisite selection of foods prepared by Chef Daniel.   Award-winning Chief Winemaker Nigel Dolan of Wyndham Estate, Australia, was in KL on May 26 to showcase Wyndham wines, and I received an invitation (thanks to the kindness of Marian Eu of Scribe Media Link) to partake of this experience.   Dolan is described by Winestate publisher Peter Simic as being “a master at producing reds with a beguiling mix of elegance, complexity and intensity”, so it was also an honour to meet the man in person.  The Shiraz seems to be specialty of Wyndham Estate, although we were equally impressed with the crisp George Wyndham Semillon Sauvignon Blanc with its citrusy character that was served together with the hors d’œuvre.   The wine served with the Tranche of Hamachi with Avruga Caviar was a 2006 Wyndham Bin 222 Chardonnay which was described as having greater complexity with its ripe peach and melon aromas, but we felt that the hamachi would have been better served with the earlier Sauvignon Blanc.

A short note on wines with Bin Numbers: The BIN range is Wyndham Estate’s most famous range of wines and it is the entry level into the Wyndham Estate brand.   This range is all about soft generous flavoursome wines designed to excite the senses with its intense, fruit-driven style.  Wyndham Estate BIN 555 Shiraz is the flagship wine and has won more than 200 awards since the 1986 vintage and it is the most popular Shiraz sold in Australia.   Fatboybakes, who was in our party, quipped (in the presence of Mr Dolan) that Bin 222 was named when the owner saw three swans in a pond by his vineyard, hence 222.  He added that the Chinese also believed that our feathered friends would bring luck.   We were gullible enough to believe him that night.  Bleh.

Two reds were served that night, a 2003 George Wyndham Cabernet Merlot and a 2005 George Wyndham Shiraz to accompany the Smoked Venison with Foie Gras and the Wagyu Beef respectively.  The Cab Merlot was more full-bodied than the Shiraz, the former displaying a gorgeous deep purplish/crimson hue that reflected seductively off the white tablecloth at Sage.  Both wines are excellent for pairing with beef, lamb, game meat and cheeses.

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Tranche of Hamachi with Avruga Caviar and Japanese Herb

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2006 Wyndham Bin 222 Chardonnay and Royale of Abalone with Sea Scallop and Yuzu Citrus

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Smoked Venison with Veloute of Mushroom, Foie Gras

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Wagyu with Truffle Mash, paired with 2005 George Wyndham Shiraz

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Clockwise from top left: Sage, Mr Nigel Dolan, Roasted Fig Tartlet with Vanilla Ice Cream, Mango Sorbet

Thanks, Marian and Wyndham Estate, for your very kind invitation.