New Life in Belgie

I'm supposed to do my scoring now but instead, I'm blogging. Not that I'm almost finish or what but the temptation of doing other things outweighs the home works. Plus, with an autopsy to attend to tomorrow, I should have prepared for something. Ahh.. Screw them!

As I approaching my week-3 in Belgium I sense my skill of adapting has evolved on its own. I am no longer craving for nasi lemak or teh tarik. No more post-skyping tears although the frequency were obviously not that significant. And, of course, I am proud that after so many years being a brat waiting at the table to be served I am literally behind the stove now. Well, I wouldn't call it a stove. In fact, I have no idea what is it call. For that, to make ease for everybody I name it 'The Thang'! (enunciated as black rapper's sounds out 'The Thang'!) It's a horizontal double glazing glass with a heater underneath it operating entirely with electric. The design is rather small. With one medium-sized Tefal pan I couldn't place anything else on it. Despite nameless, The Thang really makes my life so efficiently easy. No more fire starter or worse the gas tank!

As a matter of fact, I started cooking last week. The first two weeks were a real trouble for me. Of course, what do you expect from a 28-year-old codger with foods? It's either he eats out or having a take away and obviously for each methodology the concept is the same. HE JUST SIMPLY WON'T COOK! 
But, wait, I was in the middle of European continent and literally the accessibility to halal foods were not as if I was in Saudi Arabia or UAE where I can grab any foods with a blind towel on my face. It was so hard at first to even spotting a single onion. Then, I met several Malaysians who mostly are here for their PhD. They told me that just around the corner to the left and to the first junction on the right is the location of the asian store. So, I went. Only to learn that my leather shoes had worn as a result of excessive walk. Not to mention I lost my way 3 to 4 times looking for the sacred asian store. I was later told by a friend of mine who lives in Ghent to buy a sport shoes as he was experiencing the same fate as me during his early times in Belgium. It was indeed, the advise of a life time!

So, back to the story of spice hunting. I managed to find a the asian store, at last. Petite and mephitic. Despite the non-attractiveness the store possessed, I was so surprised that it had all the groceries that Malaysian Giant had. From the Maggi instant noodles to the Thai rice you name it they were all there. They even had plenty of lemongrass. It was just that, perhaps, due to the months of contra-banding process it had all dried up. So, as a starter I bought several basic ingredients with all hopes that I will be making something out of them. One theory that I learned from my sister-in-law who once read her doctorate in Notthingham was how to manipulate Google to the most. One way of doing it was looking for recipes on Google. She even called it the saviour of her marriage (well, I definitely need a citation for this! I think it was from my wife~ Ilham et al 2009). So, I surfed. Thinking that this would be an easy treat for me I went through several blogs that provided the recipes I was looking for. To my stunt, I was completely puzzled with almost half of the ingredients listed. Some of them described about the rempah tumis 3 beradik or 4 beradik or even 5 beradik. What the hell is rempah adik beradik? Are they really siblings? As I was blinking cluelessly at the ingredients listed by Cik Jah Chef Kampung and my ingredients on the shelves my mind was slowly resorting to bread and butter dinner again.

Yaiy, I guess I have to stop for now. Read up, read up! Later folks.