MY BIG FAMILY DINING TRADITION

Hello Lemony Readers! Hope you guys always be in pink because I’m going to share a story about my big family dining tradition.

     In my big family, we have our family tradition when everyone gathered together especially during Aidilfitri. It is so exciting because we rarely had this opportunity and do lots of activity. Okay, to make it short, during the eve of Aidilfitri, all of us will be so busy to cook in the kitchen. The most significant thing that we will cook is our special Rendang Tok, originated from my ancestor recipe. There has several steps which are quite different but honestly I can’t tell it because I’m not paying much attention every year. Sorry!

     Other than that, my aunties will cook their own special dishes (the exactly same every year but still everyone are really waiting for it) for us during Aidilfitri morning and to our guest whose come to our grandmother home. My mom will cook her special gearbox soup with rice noodle. Her sister  (above my mother) will cook her special ‘Nasi Daging’ with mixed veggie and spicy chicken. And my other three aunties will cook ‘Laksa Kelantan’ (our family is originated from there). My grandmother will cook other signature dishes during Aidilfitri such as ‘ketupat’, ‘Rendang’, ‘Nasi impit’ and ‘kuah kacang’ with helps from my cousins. Seriously that’s a lot of food and we often take two days to finish all of it almost every year (my aunties will keep the leftover in refrigerator or heat it before sleep to keep it fresh). Sometimes, some of our big family members will be come on second day of Aidilfitri and they demanded to keep it until they arrived.

     Okay, enough talking about food cause my stomach is already rumbling. Moved to other activity that we done during Aidilfitri, after done our prayer, all of us will rush to the home (actually me and my cousins only) to grab foods cause nobody can’t touch the main dishes in the morning or else my aunties will attack you with their words (They are really good for babbling). Then, everyone must seat together in the dining place, the eldest will seat at the table while the younger will seat on the mat. Then, everyone will start eating after my uncle lead the prayer and everyone will shares stories. Nobody can change their ‘Baju Melayu’ even it is hot and no television during that time. Everybody must sit together and eat.

     Okay, I’m going to stop this cliché story. There is one year during the last day of fasting while everyone is busy prepared for the Aidilfitri celebration, it is raining cats and dog (Imagine there are a lot of cats and dogs fall from the sky and keep scratching each other, haha I’m joking. It is raining heavily). While the eldest are busy cooking at the kitchen, change the curtains and the other staff, it was suddenly flooding. Water keep entered the house and my aunt screamed, calling us the kids and teenagers to push the water out of the house by using anything that works. She was babbling while cooking (so multi-tasking) because she scared that water will entered the Rendang that she was still cooked. She was using portable stove and put in on the floor because others are using the main stove in the kitchen to cook other dishes. It was really tired because nobody expected that incident. But my cousins and I are enjoying it because we can swam (we do it secretly at the front yard but caught red handed later). Because everybody was so busy to protect things on that day, we ended up having ketupat and Rendang only for that year.

      Every year, this is the great event that we are waiting so much! It is absolutely good because you can keep strengthen that family bond although everyone is living far away and seldom meet to chit chat together. It is not a great celebration if it not as much family member as possible. The more the merrier!       

     I shall stop the entry now because foods is calling for me (LOL I’m joking). See you later in the next entry.

Mr. and Mrs. Manja's Rule

Hey everyone!

How's life? Good? Bad? Mine are getting better & I'm blessed :') Alhamdulillah.

So yeah, I'm gonna share a part of my family traditions that we practically do during dining and what would be our most favorite meal.

The first rule that mum and dad had set up for me and my siblings is we aren't allow to socialize during eating where the room will be as quiet as a mouse. Mum and dad are very strict on this because they wanted us to appreciate the meal and it is one of the manners. Even though there are something important to talk about, we'll keep it until the last person finish his/her last bite. Then the best part started where everyone started to talk and share how's their day going, having discussion on any decision and even laugh on inside jokes. But the sad part is when me and my elder brother are now busy with our college and university life that we're not around in the house. And it is always a pleasure for me and my brother to come home on the weekends. Omg I miss my family alreadyyy :(

Talk about our favorite meal, it will be rendang ayam! Um yummy yummy! This is why if you come to my house there's always rendang ayam as one of the dishes although its not hari raya. If I'm home, I'll help mum to cook it and it will be the first dish to prepare. We rarely eat rendang ayam with rice because we always eat it with bread. It taste really nice when it is still hot and warm. Mum is always the best cook!

The first time I help my mum cook rendang ayam is when I was 13 years old. Thats the very first time I held a pestle and mortar, a wok, a spatula, and get sweat because the of the stove. I really had a great time helping mum to cook it. That is also the time where I learnt to handle the kitchen. Mum taught me so many things and I really appreciate all those knowledge.

The 'extraordinary' family ritual 😎

Hey guys, Ayizz is back! 😎Are you excited for our second blog? because I am! It has been a pretty long time since I last blog 😅

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So for our class today, Miss Shereen mentioned about Rose and her family having a ritual during dinner time where they talk about themselves while eating. When we talk about ritual during dinner time, one thing that comes in my mind is the ritual that my family always do at our hometown.

Since my late grandfather was still alive, it is compulsory for everyone to sit and eat together. No gadget was allowed as everyone was encouraged to talk to each other and enjoy the moment. Everyone would sit on the floor but the difference is that men in the family would eat on the table which look like a Japanese table (except that we don't have the chairs) and women would have to eat while lifting their plate like the lady in the picture.

In addition, the head of the family will recite the prayer and only after that everyone are allow to eat. My late grandfather used to be the one who recite the prayer, but now it's my dad. We also have to be respectful in term where we have to give way to the elders to take their food first and then the others. You see, my late grandfather is very strict and everyone just have to follow what he wants (unless you want to be nagged and punished, you should try skipping the meal time 😜) Nowadays, even if he is not here anymore, we still practice the same ritual 😊

Moving on to the next point, I will now be talking about the ritual in my house. I am happy to say that my father is not that strict like my late grandfather 😂 In my small family, we are allowed to eat anywhere we want, in front of the television, in our room or on the couch watching Korean drama (well, I am the one who did that 😋😎) Reading other people's post about the ritual in their house make me feels like "eh, is my family the only one who can eat anywhere, not just the dining table?" Well, even if we are allowed to eat anywhere, there are still rules applied to it. Some of it is that, you must clean up the place after eating and bring your plates to the kitchen back. DON'T EVER LEAVE IT WHERE YOU EAT. Like seriously, my dad would nag all day if we leave our plates or cup in front of the television. 

One more thing that I noticed is that my mum would take pictures of the food first before eating. So DON'T YOU DARE START EATING WITHOUT HER TAKING THE PICTURES FIRST 😣 As I mentioned before, my parents are quite busy, therefore we would eat outside or eat fast food. That is why, when my mum cook, she would put 100% effort and make sure to take pictures 📷 These are some of the food that she cooked (sorry for the low quality photos, my mum don't really have great photography skills 😅)

I guess my mum was extra active that day 😂

 

 

Bread pudding!

If you guys are wondering where I got this pictures, I stole it from my mum's Facebook 😂😂😂 There's a lot more photos but my mum do not post it on Facebook, she only share it with our family group.

As my mum rarely cook, I would say everything she cook is my favorite dish 😉😇Although  I always complained to my mum that she is wasting her phone's storage with her cooking pictures, I know that someday when I look at it I will miss her cooking. Like right now, I want her sambal udang so bad! I think thats it for today's post. See you on the next post! 👋

Dinner in the Shamsul Bahrain Household

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I just found out how to put emojis on blogger lol.

Hello everyone! It's been quite some time since I last blogged. So, now that I'm starting again, I guess I'm friends with Vivy Yusof again too. You know, cos she blogs and I blog. Huhu. 🙊🙊 Anywhoo, we were asked to recall any childhood memories about our family traditions or favourite food and why that memory is precious to us. I don't think I have a family tradition but I guess I could share a thing or two about my family and I. So here goes.

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I guess you could say that we're quite adventurous with the food we eat and I have my dad to thank for. You see, my dad is a Kelantanese kampung boy who travelled for his studies. (This means to say that he grew up eating a lot of, sometimes exotic, sometimes down right weird food lol). As a struggling degree student, he worked as a cook in one of the cafeterias in his uni and that was where he learned how to cook food of mostly American and Mexican influences. My mother on the other hand, didn't like cooking but she eventually took pleasure in baking instant goods (in which I can relate to on a spiritual level) and learned to cook from my dad. Now, their dishes are just heavenly. 

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Growing up, there were many things that I notice about my parents through the food they prepare for us. For starters, I realize that they are very Malay haha. I remember that while we were living abroad, we would always have rice at least once every two days. I have no idea how my parents managed this cos serving rice with Malay dishes meant spending a lot of time in the kitchen and they were both students back then not to mention having 3 kids to feed!! I'm only taking the IB diploma, I don't have to cook, don't have any kids nor do I have to wash my own clothes and I still don't have enough time!!! 😷😷 But besides that, they also enjoy trying out different dishes, though they might not turn out the way we expected it to. I remember this one time when my dad tried making sushi from scratch. I don't know what went wrong but it was terrible! We ended up having it with condensed milk which I know sounds gross, but it surprisingly made it decent enough to eat hahah. I was about 6 years old when that happened. We never made sushi ever again haha. Good times.

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Table manners were always so important to my Grandma, so that means no chewing out loud, no elbows on the dinner table, always have your hair tied when eating, no reaching arms out across the dinner table etc. These rules are now used in my father's household too. Apparently, there's also a specific way to scoop rice from the rice cooker. You're supposed to scrape bits of it from the top instead of pressing down and scooping it or vice versa lol. I never bothered to remember and I suppose my mum got tired of telling me off. But hey, if it goes on the plate then it goes on the plate! 😋😋 

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Growing up, family dinners were always cherished, especially when everyone got together. You see, my sister and I both went to boarding school, so it was always just my parents and brother at home and cooking for only 3 people didn't seem worth the trouble, especially after a long day at work. I guess this is common among Malaysian households but what makes me cherish my family time more is this. My dad tells me that my mum refrains from making our fave dishes or going to our favourite restaurants whenever my sister and I aren't at home because it reminds her of us. 😢😢😢 Poor Mirul though, abstained from good food because of us sisters hahah. But it's okay, he's not picky. Poor Abah as well. He blames us for his non existing dates hahaha.

Tbh, I'm quite like my mum sometimes. I can never go into Old Town White Coffee or go shopping for clothes or pass by South China Sea without remembering my mum. (I know, I'm such a baby ugh) I can't even smell coffee without remembering my Abah (who's a coffee addict in denial). What's precious though is that he insists that my mum's coffee is the best ever and never fails to mention this. #goals
My future husband best do this too if he wants coffee from me haha 💅

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I suppose the reason why I'm writing mostly of my parents and family members is because they are the ones responsible to instill these values in my siblings and I. After all, tradition is the transmission of values from generation to generation and this is what empowers us as a family. 

Much love to Abah, Mommy, Anis and Mirul 💗

Eating with La Familia

Hi everyone!! Look who's back 😎 . So now we're gonna move to our next novel which is...... The Particular Sadness Of Lemon Cake 🍋 🎂 !  For our first task, we were asked to recall any childhood memories about eating traditions.

Well, dinner nowadays at home is way much different from when I was still a little girl. Back then, my mom didn't use to work so she had LOADS of time to cook and bake for all of us. I still remember moments of us ( me and my sister ) helping her to bake my birthday cake. Oh gosh!!! How I miss those days 😭 . I also remember some of her dishes that I haven't eaten again since forever like apple and blackberry crumble, laksa Johor, Victoria cakes and many more. I'm literally drooling here haha just kidding.

However, now we always eat outdoors or buy take-away food and eat at home. My mom RARELY cooks - only when me and my sister and brother come back from hostel or during weekends. My dad on the other hand has never ever cooked for us (as far as I remember hehe).  As sad as this sounds, I think this makes my mom's cooking even more special. When she cooks it feels like it's Eid already! Plus, she always cooks her five-star meals like lasagne, chilli crab or tomyam. I try to cherish moments like these while I still can.

Even though our eating styles have somehow changed across the years, one thing's still the same for sure. NO TALKING, NO GADGETS AND NO PLAYING AROUND WHILE EATING. Be it at home or outdoors, these strict rules put by my dad will always stick. My dad's very particular when it comes to these matters. He really wants eating time to also be family-bonding time as we don't really gather together at other times. I may have seen these as silly rules when I was younger but I think I understand now why he put them in the first place 😊 .

So, I think that's about it. My eyes are starting to tear up already. I hope you guys enjoyed my post. Feel free to drop down any comments aye. Have a nice week ahead! Bye 😉  💜 .

Eating with Zafry Famiry

Hi guys it's me again. It's been awhile :D. On this blog, we were given another novel to discuss on and this time we got a novel called the particular sadness of lemon cake. On chapter 8, Rose and her family seem to have a ritual during dinner time where they talk about themselves while eating. I find this similar to my family where we usually share dinner time together and it's the only time where we get to express ourselves. My family dinner can go in two different ways, one in which is that it can be really quiet (basically concentrating on our food 😂), the other one is that we are actually talking with each other.

Personally i think that my favourite dinner was when i was a kid and i had to compete with my sister. Since me and my sister's birthday was only 2 days apart, we always compete when to celebrate or which day to celebrate. Most of the time, my sister would have the advantage since her birthday is 2 days after which i found wasn't fair 😂. I am very competitive if not the most competitive in my family, I remember when I lost a game to my brother I would cry. Ok back to the dinner. I can't remember much of the details but basically, we had a birthday party on the afternoon and we had dinner as a family. All i could remember was i got a lot of gift on that day compared to my sister which was a joyful victory for me. 

One of the thing that my family is so strict about is that NO WATCHING TV WHILE EATING AND NO EATING IN THE ROOM. I guess that's reasonable if you think about it. Oh one more thing NO SINGING WHILE EATING why? I have no idea why actually but every time we sing, my mom would usually say ''recite prayers'' instead 😂. As you can see i am very skinny in person but my family are big eaters but it depends. My dad always complain about how when my mom made a lot of food, we couldn't finish it but when she tried to reduce the amount of food it's not enough for everyone 😂. 

To conclude, my family are big eaters but to a certain extend 😂. We are genetically skinny but somehow my dad manages to gain weight after marriage maybe it's because of my mom's delicious cooking. My mom will try to satisfy the needs of her children which is why i love her 💝. One of my goal is to learn cooking from her so that I could cook myself and others good food especially Laksa Sarawak to my friends. 

"Dari Dapur Niza"

Hey, everyone. I'm back! Excited, right? I know most of you are longing for my presence in this blog. Basically, Ms Shereen just gave us a task to talk about any of our childhood memory regarding eating traditions in our family.

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First of all, let me explain to you about the title of my post today, "DariDapurNiza". Actually, it's a name of my mom's blog where she shares her recipe of any homemade dishes that she cooks for us at home. It surprises me that my mom did blogging earlier than me. Well, like mother, like son. HAHA. Clearly, my passions towards cooking and baking is inherited from my mother.

Honestly, there's no particular rules or traditions that my family applied when we have our meal together, it's just that, I think for several reasons that it is a must for a soy sauce(kicap) to be on the dining table whenever we have our meals. I would say all my siblings are kicap lovers. One more thing, NO eating in front of TV and NO eating in the room. BUT, whenever we have like a Saturday movie night, my parents will order boxes of pizza and we'll enjoy them while watching the television. I'm in tears right now! Almost about more than a month since the last time I met them. So, all of these memories are valuable to me because obviously, I've grown as an identity to my family and it teaches me on appreciating every moments that I spend with my family. Because not everyone is as fortunate as me where they have the time to spend with their family together. I really love my dad as he knows how to separate job time and family time.

Well, looking at my family, you guys can conclude that we're big eaters. My mom will try to fulfill any of our craving with her magic wand in the kitchen and create delicious, scrumptious and exquisite meals. We can go travelling via our food from Malaysia to India to Italy to France to Thailand to America to China and lastly to anywhere we want. I can't decide on my favourite food because I think there's no flaws in my mom's cook or even my dad's. But, I would say my mom's Shepherd pie is the best and not to forget her masak lemak ketam.

That's all for today, I guess. See u soon! Bye, have a nice day!

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Task B : Rose's family tradition

Today is a very productive morning, I'd say. At least my eyes aren't betraying me in any way (eg: falling asleep in class).

So, today Ms Shereen has assigned us optional tasks, so I decide to pick Task 2 which is less interpersonal and fits my mood today. Rose and her family's traditions are described indiscretely by the writer through the usage of functional words like 'always' and 'have been'.

I'll be pleased give you readers an appropriate definition for tradition before I start with my analysis. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, tradition is the handing down of information, beliefs, or customs from one generation to another.

What I noticed in TPSOF is that the tradition highlighted also have something to do with food. Can you guess what???

Yes! It's dining together! Rose and her family of four (Dad, Mom, her and Joseph) had dinners together, since the start of the novel until the end, when there's only three of them left.

At their first dinner together in the novel, Rose has been subtle of what she tasted in Lane's cooking (which is quite depressing for a 9-year-old), yet the taste was still not understandable enough for her to describe what she tasted. She ends up very confused and feels that her family is not supportive of her problems by not listening to her carefully. In this part, the writer introduces other characters which are Lane, her mother who feels lonely and John, her father who loves eating her wife's cooking. Joseph is also describes as not a person who likes eating and prefers to eat in pills, if possible.

This tradition continued in method until 13 years later, when Rose was 22. She cooked her own first meal (spaghetti and meatballs) after her brother, Joseph disappeared for good. Through the event of Rose making her first family meal, I noticed her insecurity in tasting her own feelings while her parents were also eating, so she waited for them to finish eating. John and Lane, now ripe in age, complimented their daughter's cooking. Afterwards, Rose took courage and tasted things, factories and something she couldn't comprehend.

Hence I could conclude that this dining tradition is used by the writer, Aimee Bender, to beautifully pass on the message that family traditions are meant to be continued and the younger generations should defend it to the end of their lives, same as Rose who tried conquering her fears of tasting her own feelings in order to simply cook for her family.

Here We Go Again!

Dear Students,
Welcome to our latest blog! Yes it's that time of the month to start talking about our latest novel.
As usual we will be sharing and putting up responses and reflections on issues discussed in the novel of your choice: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.
The same rules still apply- be respectful, respond and reflect. I hope to see good discussions and thoughtful observations of the characters and themes. Maybe we could even share a recipe or two ;)
So, let's begin..


Sincerely,
Ms Shereen