Cooking up a storm

Despite my doc's warning against going out of my house, I went to another colleague's house with some of my colleagues to help out in whipping up a storm. No hurricanes were stirred though. When we reached there, the host proudly showed us her binoculars which came free with the purchase of a cam. I thought it would be some lousy junk coz free things are not always good. Surprisingly, it was so powerful that I could see the highway which was frigging far away! Now I know why the host said that she and her husband could even see clearly couples making out in the night in some open space. She has also seen youths taking drugs under the expressway.

I have digressed and I shall get to the point. The reason why we decided to cook together was to bond with one another in the process and also, they were very concerned about my lack of involvement in the kitchen at home. I was always very fearful of getting burnt or hurt in the kitchen especially when standing near a pot of boiling water or frying things. Well, they started me off with simple stuff like stirring sauces, washing utensils and slowly got me to stir the boiling soup and vegetables which was quite an experience as I felt as if I was attending my Home Ec lesson all over again. Meanwhile, I mused over my colleague's enthusiasm in cutting vege, garlic and all that stuff. I've always been very fearful of using the knife. Our professional cutter started telling us that there's a saying about how one should never say that the knife is blunt before using it as one will get cut by it. Interesting eh?

Surprisingly, everything went well, from cutting to boiling and frying. Thought that we girls would turn the place upside down - the assumption held by the host's husband who decided to absent himself from our madness. I think we possessed such good team work that we finished cooking the assorted mushrooms in oyster sauce, cruciferous vege in oyster sauce (by then, it kinda freaked me out as I was afraid of ending up with a really swollen lip due to the oyster sauce), prawns in delicious chilli sauce, grilled 24 chicken wings, making campbell soup and making the jelly with peach which was really tedious as a lot of arm power is needed to stir it continuously, within a few hours. Considering the amount of nonsense we talked in the kitchen, from pole dancing to gossiping about work, we managed to whip up the dishes quickly. Most ppl would not have the appetite to eat after they cook but we were just so happy to eat what we cooked. Probably it's because it's the first time we cooked together and really enjoyed ourselves, we really enjoyed the sweet success of our hard work. Of course, clearing up was a different thing. We hated it but still worked efficiently at it so that we could rest in the living room and generate more noise.

After the cleaning up, we proceeded to get our jelly. As we picked up the jellies, we gotta shock as we saw ants frozen inside. It looked kinda exotic, as if you are an archeologist discovering the fossil remains of an unidentified creature in a piece of rock. Of course, I didn't eat the ants. I pinched off the parts where there were ants. Almost every cube of jelly had an ant. They must have cunningly made their way into the powder earlier or the acid or the flavouring.

As we slouched big time at the couch, we talked about the programmes we loved and to my surprise, 99% of us watched exactly the same stuff - survivor, amazing race, america's top models, project runway and the apprentice. We were big time reality tv freaks. Of course, we started bitching about who's good and who's total crap. We talked so long and so loudly thru the nite till 11 pm. Well, I really enjoyed myself last nite and I hope that will not be the 1st and last cooking session for us.

I am looking forward to having dinner with this bunch of crazy colleagues this Wed before heading for the nutcracker performance at the esplanade.

Have I mentioned that as of this morning, my lip has not become more swollen or less swollen so the oyster extract used in oyster sauce isn't the real stuff :) Of course, I shall continue to pray v hard for my poor lip. I can't go around looking like I've got some STD... :(