Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Of MCC and Jealous Wives

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A club was born where I’m working at, far far away from home. It’s the MCC – Men’s Cooking Club. For some reason, many of the guys who are usually here with their families are family-less now. Obviously, they are used to their spouses’ better cooking compared to what they could get at the restaurants here and have decided that whatever we can conjure up during the lunch hour is far better than anything that we could get elsewhere. And that is without taking into account the slow service, the surly service and the no service. Now you see why we come up winners even if we end up rice with fried eggs, fried beef, fried chicken or fried fish. Throw in your kicap, whatever cili available, api, merah or hijau, we’ve got a winner. Even the Berahims ready to eat is OK once in a while. Or the perencah, ready to cook. Beggars can’t be choosy.

Then we got creative. Some would cook the night before and heat the food up for lunch the next day. And hey, there’s even leftover for dinner. And after dinner, hey, there’s even leftover for the next day’s lunch!! It still tasted good the next day. Then some got far more creative. They’d wake up at five in the morning to cook for lunch. Tell me, when was the last time you heard a guy waking up at five in the morning to cook lunch for a bunch of other guys? And dinner and lunch the next day?

Then you have Hassan. Now Hassan can come up with fish curry when there seemed to be no fish, chicken masak merah when there is nary a pepper in sight and tom yam kung when there’s no Thai national in the land. Hassan would cook beef soup. Chicken masak asam. You name it.

Lina have heard of Hassan now. But our friend Zaki’s better half puts him in a far superior perspective. After hearing Hassan, Hassan, Hassan and Hassan for about two weeks, she got curious. Hassan knows how to cook dishes that she does not. That was not the Hassan she knew.

“Abang, pandai sangat ke Hassan tu masak bang?”

She is worried.

“Pandaaaaiiiii………………..”

Zaki decided to turn the screw a bit.

That’s a first. Zaki’s wife is not worried about him losing his head over other things, such as fishing, cockfighting or women. She’s got far serious problems.

Hassan.

I found a new drug.

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