I don't know whether it's too late or it's just tooooo much late to start loving what I am doing everyday as homemaker, a stay at home mother.Well I mean, it took 2 full years to get this feeling. Kinda long huh? You know, comfy with what am juggling, with the boredom of doing regular and irregular unfinished and never ending domestic jobs all over and over again, every single day, from morning until the next morning.So, well, I am proudly say that I am a happy housewife (hopefully without that "desperate" thingy)
So what make me push away all the ambitious dream, living in another's life wish, big green eyed monster every time I see someone's else life that seem so much better and happier and luckier than mine? I don't exactly know. Maybe my negotiation skill increase that much. Maybe the magic spells have worked so far. Or maybe, just like a wise man said, it's all about the time, baby. Time.
But to be honest, a little, a tiny part that most help me thru my denial phase is Kitchen. I know, I know my kitchen is still and will always be a mess. There's no big pantry with stove and oven gas and full set of stainless steel kitchen set like I am dreaming of (we're all dreaming of!). My oven is still an old fashioned but sophisticated (when it was first made, about 30 years ago maybe?) OTANG which I fortuned frommy beloved mom, paired with unbranded hand mixer, and pans and oh my god, I think almost of my kitchen utensils are from my mom!
But hey, creativity comes from limitation rite? With all that limitation and modest and cheap stuffs, somehow I find another joyful, another relaxing mind, another precious moment when I stir the dough, bake it and watch the magic thru the oven's glass: watch the dough rise, from mix of flour, egg, sugar and fat, turn into a delicious ready to eat cake. Yeah, in the middle of my boredom and galau and pencarian jati diri ala abege labil, I have found my hidden passion.
I am not an expert in kitchen. Am away from what you all imagine as domestic goddess. I mean let me make it clear to you, I could loudly say the difference between turmeric and ginger since I was at college. My masterpiece that I created from kitchen is indomie goreng with fried egg plus sawi and 5 red big hot chili pepper (this phrase seems familiar, isn't it? Oh yes, the band!).I barely can differ what is great food or what it's just awful. As long as it is edible, it'll be great for my tongue. Yes, I was that bad!
But then the destiny calls. Marriage. Well actually my husband never force me to cook, he understand his wife that well. But you know, marriage is legal, normal, moral, social contract. And there we're trapped in social norms. And social norms told us women to serve the food to feed the hungry tummy of our husband and kids. Those social norms and the cynic eyes of my mother and sister in law and my shameful mother who regret didn't force her daughter to learn to cook; had stabbed me right into my heart. They must think what kind of woman who has no ability to cook for her husband? So, ok. Deal, I have to cook.
Begin with my all time, ultimate savior: the easiest, cheapest, no time consuming, hygienic and easy to find, affordable and buildable, my holly molly dolly instant seasoning. I can serve Padang's until western food in the dining table, ready to serve not more than an hour. From soup, saut , until fried recipe. From easy peasy fried tempe until the world's most delicious food: rendang.Everyone is happy. My husband is happy. No complaining of over salt, no flaws, no mistake. It was just right, like the way it should be.
It was right until I got pregnant. Worry of everything I ate. Will it be toxic and poisonous for my fetus? I started to read carefully every ingredients of every single food I consume. Sodium bikarbonat. Monosodium glutamate. Sugar. Salt. Fat. Artificial flavor ad color. O oh. I had to stop. I had to learn to cook, a real one. Using fresh ingredients, real flavor, not a devil red coloring which really struck into your eyes but harm your body. So the journey began. Try to follow food combining. Try to cook everyday, although it was just only sayur asem or soup or sayur bayam and back again in sayur asem with tempe and tahu goreng. Everyday.
Then this baby is getting bigger and bigger. He started to eat and nibble. Snack! So I learn how to make snack. Finger food start with fruit only. Then fruit with a little flavoring, like apple boiled in bit of water with cinnamon and clove. Then fruit mix with flour (leftover bread) and egg so we get raisin and banana bread pudding. Oryou add butter and transfer it into oven and Voila, here comes banana cake, a never failed snack for a year old son,parent in law and a tired working hubby. And the ingredient began to add more and more, from the simplest way like stir and bake, until the complicate one like stir, mix, stir, fold, bake, reverse (can you guess what is it?)
I begin to walk on cooking/baking land. A land of never ending experiments, where you can mix this and that to get this and that. Land of surprising joy.And I am happily face the over or under bake cake and cookies, the burnt cake until you can't even clean the pitch darkest black pan, the hilarious, the weirdest taste by experimentingflavors and colors and techniques and method which make you come up with a piece of great melt cake in your mouth, relaxing and loving yet hard to forget; but sometimes a big failure. But that's all right. Because a thank, a smile or silence with an empty pan in front of your beloved's mouth full of your heartmade cake is worth the price of all the sweat , failure, energy, time and money you spent.
I am happy and thankful to be a housewife who has time to explore and experiment in my beautiful messy laboratory: kitchen.
So, this is my new passion, what's yours?
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