A Lovely Lady Came To Town

About one and a half weeks ago, a very lovely and pretty young lady came to visit. We met up, and it was an evening of lots of giggles and laughter, as we sat and yakked and yakked and yakked through the evening, until way past the midnight hour.

Who was this scintillating company? The ever bubbly Wena of Mum-Mum fame of course.

And she also brought nice, yummy food goodies for me. I didn’t have a chance to put up the pics before my trip, but here they are, slightly belatedly.

See the two cute little cat pepper shakers? Nice, huh? Two kuchings (cats) from Kuching "Cat City", Sarawak. This Malaysian state produces world-famous pepper crops. The brown cat has white pepper and the black cat has… you guessed it, black pepper. They are now sitting very prettily on the sideboard in the dining room.

Wanna see the rest of the stuff?

Woo hoo! Look at this! Sarawak laksa paste. I haven’t had Sarawak laksa in a looonng time. A family friend used to buy us the paste when he used to visit Kuching on a regular basis. And now, I can indulge once again.

This is kacangma (also known as Chinese motherwort, if I’m not wrong). It’s a fairly wild growing herb, which I think is only found in Sabah and Sarawak, not even in Brunei. It is usually cooked with chicken and rice wine, and eaten by ladies as it is believed to be a health tonic, and to aid the elimination of wind from the body. It is eaten during normal times, but especially after having a baby. No, Wena was NOT hinting at anything. What were you thinking??! She knew I have eaten kacangma before, and knew I couldn’t get it in Singapore, so she brought me some. Now, isn’t that sweet?

It is definitely an acquired taste. But for those who have eaten it before, and liked it, their relationship with this rather unattractive-looking herbal dish takes on a sort of comfort food type symbiosis.

But what did we have for dinner that night, you ask? Well, Wena has blogged about it… here (you’ll have to scroll down… and look for the March 16 entry). Go see.

It was a fun night with very enjoyable company.

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
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