What’s your focus in life?

Let’s take a little time out to do word association. There’s a short list that appears after this paragraph. Quickly read each item (one at a time) and let the thoughts just flow through your mind.


1. Your Birthday

2. Christmas

3. Deepavali (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/)
(if you don’t know what this is, please move on.)


4. Father’s Day


5. New Year


All done? Alrighty then. Let’s take a stab at guessing one common item that kept cropping up in your list.

Christmas – once you were done with ruddy Santa Claus and the presents, did the image of a turkey (thank the western media for this one) or your family dinners come to mind?

For Deepavali, did you think of murukku and mutton curry? Instead of the fight of good over evil, and giving thanks to God?

Your birthday – a picture of your favourite cake. And somewhere there would also have been a banquet of your fav foods that had been whipped up for you. (For some reason the picture that pops up in my head always has party hats in it. Blame this on those primary school textbooks with their stereotype illustrations.)

What does this whole exercise prove? Food dominates our lives. It is as simple as that.


Don’t let your taste bud rule your life!

It is something that has struck home repeatedly over these past few years (blame it on middle age ruminations). Festivals and celebrations revolve around food, food and more food.

When I tried to plan an outing to one of our lovely waterfalls in Ulu Langat, the focus somehow shifted from a day out enjoying glorious mother nature to what we should have for a picnic.

Much to the chagrin of the husband of one of my old classmates, old school chums were determined to take a two hour drive up north to pig out on the local delicacies there. I can hear you say, “What’s wrong with that?”. Dear reader – it was about nothing but mouthwatering meals.

There was no decent pretense of sightseeing, or tracking down schoolmates who had settled up there. It was unashamed determination to stuff our faces with the undeniably cheap and scrumptious food on every street up there.

My mother made food the centre of her life. You could tell who her favourite child/ grandchild/ relative / friend was by what she cooked for the person and whether she served it on her lovely Pyrex dishes or the sorry looking cracked dishes used everyday.

Food was meant as a means to survive. As life got easier, we just got pickier, craving for more taste, craving for the exotic, craving to outdo whatever was on our neighbour’s designer table. Unfortunately this seems to have resulted in a loss of taste for many things that are unrelated to food.

As Oprah Winfrey advocates the less is more lifestyle during these economically challenged times, we Malaysians can definitely practice it in terms of food.

Here are some suggestions for you to act on:
· Focus on the company.
Do fun stuff that takes the focus away from food. Instead of getting cranky on designer coffee or slurping down artery clogging curry laksa, try a game of bowling or spend time at the shelter home.

· Stop grumbling (a polite alternative for “bitching”)
If your friends only want some simple fare for one meal, just go with the flow. Come one, it’s only one meal, not a request for a conversion in your religion!

· Back to basics.
For the next religious festival, look for the significance behind it and focus on that.

If I were a poor farmer in Kerala, India, who had porridge half the time, yeah it made sense to celebrate Onam (http://www.onamfestival.org/what-is-onam.html)day with 15 coconut rich sleep inducing dishes for lunch. Since I don’t fall into that category, I think I should just whittle it down to three or four simple dishes.

· Stop food rewards.
No fast food as a reward for the kid who does his chores. No heavy lunches for the jubilant sales team. Try some other rewards like an extra hour in the park / a day at the gym / a day off, etc.

You’ve got the idea, haven’t you? So, snatch control of your life away from your taste buds today. What’s your first step going to be?

Rare Exotic Fruits

Just when you think you know every single fruit there is in your country, you come across a couple of delightful new ones.


Sabah is a place that still holds many secrets close to her heart. When we were out at the foothills of Mount Kinabalu ( approximately forty minutes from Kota Kinabalu), we stopped at long row of stalls, filled with irresistible snacks vegetables and fruits of all shapes and colours.

There were the usual Malaysian fruits such as pomelo, chiku and mangoes that you can find in every nook and cranny out in the peninsular, making us go, "Been there, done that."

Then something caught our eye. And had us cracking our heads.

A rather prickly looking fruit stared at intruders from a corner. Havaing learnt the hard way how sharp the thorns of a durian can be, I poked it cautiously. Hey! It was quite soft, reminding me of one of those squashy toys that kids love.

“I assure you, you would never have tasted anything like this in KL!” gushed our Sabahan friend . So the Talap was packed up for us.

She was right, and it wasn’t just the taste that was unusual.

That night, the smell of diesel wafted around our room. Since the Ria Lodge was close to the main road, we assumed it was from the many huge lorries that plied the road.

When we finally opened up the fruit two days later, we realised that it was the talap that gave out that lovely “fragrance” you get at some petrol stations. Don’t wrinkle your nose in disgust just yet.

The taste was unique. The fruit was an exotic mixture of passion fruit and a very slight taste of durian tucked away somewhere in there. Rich, creamy, succulent. If it were to be sold over here, I’m sure Malaysians on over on this side will get addicted to it. So, why isn’t it? Haven’t got a good answer to that one yet.

By the way there’s another fruit over in Sabah, called the lemak manis (literally, in Malay it means “sweet fat”). Have you tried it yet? I know I’ve got a pix of it sitting somewhere about ………