Corn on the cobb---ies

I remember when I was very little, ok wait, haha, perhaps not too little, dinner time was always marked by the scent of freshly cooked rice, vegetables in garlic sauce, pork with salty vegetables and dark sauce, and the smell of soup, rich in colour and texture that my grandma lovingly boiled over the charcoal stove every single day. You could say that the meal that I looked forward to, every single day was dinner.

Breakfast was bland, bland steamed bread (I couldn't drink tea last time coz' my uncle insisted that tea was bad was for the healths of little girls) unless of course my grandma would treat us little girls to chwee kueh. Lunch was either at school or leftover food from the night before (which honestly, on hindsight didn't taste the same) and lunch was always like that, till that year where my grandmother decided that good lunches meant that I would pay alot of attention in school and I would be a good, hardworking girl for the rest of the day.

Dinner really was the meal that rocked my world. Yes on one hand there was the food - steaming and warm, but on the other, dinner also marked the end of the day, when school would be over, when the sun would set and there would be good shows on television, when my parents would get back from work (my sisters and I would listen so hard to hear the car being driven into the driveway) . The smell of rice would always wake me from the deepest slumbers, no matter how tired I was...RICE with CURRY was my whole world.

Till today, that's why..when I smell anything remotely similar...the smell of the barbecue, the smell of vegetable stir-fry- especially in the evenings, when there's a light cool breeze, when the sun is close to the horizon, about to set....the smells always sends my spirit soaring home.

Home whose familiarity I always took for granted for the last 18 years of my life, home that you never realise that you would really miss until you've been away so far for long.

Uncle, wo yao kopi-c bing...

Auntie, wo yao wanton mee, lar jiao tuo yi dian, bu yao char siew.