FUNNYACCENT

Kacang Tanduk - Horn Nut

I found this strange looking nuts  at a supermarket on Washington Street, Chinatown on Saturday afternoon. The last time I saw and ate them was when I was five years old. Pheww.........is that long? It was the year my father went to Congo and we went to live for a year with grandmother in her big house in Batu Uban, Penang.

I don't remember how and who brought this strange looking nuts home. I remember holding one of them in my palm. "Is this horn belong to midget water buffalo?"

I remember Tok Uda- young grandmother (my grandfather's second wife) chuckled at my question, pulled me into her arm and said I was funny.

I remember Tok, grandmother snorted at my question and said it was a dumb question.

I remember my mother responded in a sharp tone to grandmother that I was smart that's why I asked the question and not to say stupid to her children.

I remember my sister KN roasted them in grandmother's portable charcoal stove in her red tile kitchen.

I remember my sister told me to step away from the stove as the they cracked and popped in the glowing red charcoal. They sound like when you ripped the fabric apart. The little sparks flew high in the air, landed on the floor, turned into black bits.

I remember KN picked them out from the stove with a huge steel tongs. She put them one by one on three layers kitchen rags. When she got them all out, KN held together the four corners of the rags, folded them and pounded them gently with a stone pestle.

When she unfolded the rags, the broken and cracked nuts exposed the white meat.

I remember sitting on the kitchen red steps holding out my right palm as my mother picked the white meat from the shells with a used satay skewer. My mother sat on the door threshold, I sat between her legs, my body twisted to the right so I could see everybody's face, my right  elbow rested on my mother's knee.

I remember KN sat next to me, picking out the tiny white nut from her palm while Tok Uda did her share.

I remember my mother's lovely laughter at KN's joke, and Tok Uda's pat on my sister's shoulder when she heard something funny.

I don't remember what they were talking about but I remember the joyous moment surrounded by the special women in my life.

For  Jo, you're right, it's something to do with horn, because they're called Horn Nuts. But I have no idea where are they from, or where do they grow or what does a plant looks like. Perhaps we should start Google and find out.

I hope somebody knows a little history of Horn Nuts and share it with us.

And for Nina, I think it is still exotic, isn't it?

So, I bought about a dozen that cost me $0.45 ($1.65/lb). 

For Mak, who stood by me even when I was only five years young.

For KN, who is always there to answer my questions. When I got home I uploaded the pictures and e-mailed her. I called her and left her a message to check her e-mail. An hour later, she wrote back and told me how to prepare the horn nuts. Boil them, but don't roast them in the oven. They might pop up and mess up your oven.

For Tok Uda, whose love like flowing river after the rain.

Have You Ever Seen This?

Care to guess?

Rise All It Wants

I love bread pudding, but I never came around to try my hand on it until today. My first memory of bread pudding was when my mother used to make it from the left over bread we had for breakfast.

I used raisin cinnamon bread instead of plain white bread, light cream, eggs and brown sugar. When I removed my bread pudding out of the oven, my first reaction was, "Holly Ramadhan!!!" Is it suppose to rise? I dug a trash bin and counted the egg shells.

Aaahhhh.........No wonder it rose. The recipe said, three eggs, I used five large eggs. After 15 minutes I left it on the kitchen table, the pudding top flattened.

I had it with blueberry compote I made a few weeks ago. I have to admit my bread pudding was heavenly delicous eventhough I messed up the recipe a little bit.

Fast Fall

Firs day of  Ramadhan and first day of Fall.

Selamat Berpuasa.

Evaluation

One day someone you don't care much, someone you regard as an asshole, someone who likes to jab to anybody who breathes under the sun and the moon and the stars with sarcastic remark comes up to you and says: You look like a pig.

Your response would be: You choose your reaction base on the size of your ego.

There is one last reaction you'd not thought about it, by saying to that person:

"And?"

What do you think would it be that person's reaction?

Lets jump back to your reaction.

If you were angry by that person remark....

Wait a minute,  if I was angry? What do you mean if I was angry? Of course I was angry. I have the right to be angry!!!

Did you get angry because you didn't do anything to that person and yet s/he had a nerve to say such a thing at you.

Or

You got angry because pig, well it's a pig.

What if that person said, you look like a cat? Or a lizard? Or a goldfish? Or a turtle? Or a butterfly? Or a camel? Or a tiger? Or orang utan?Would your anger slide a few degree lower because after all cat, lizard, goldfish, butterfly, camel, tiger and orang utan are not forbidden in Islam?

So when a person says something to you that you are not, why do you get angry?

After all you are not what s/he says you are.

And on top of that you add, you don't go around calling people's names, or compare anybody to an animal, or object.

Exactly.

You don't go around calling people's names.

But I know and you know it, a lot of people out there like to tune in on certain music. And there is always somebody is fool enough to jump into a circle and try  hard to synchronize their steps with the music which they claim insulted them. If they are insulted by it why do they dance to it?

Is it because you are not what s/he says you are?

And if you are angry, does it mean unconsciously you are what s/he says you are?

And you hate that person. You hate that person with all cells in your body, with all the atom in your being, with all the blood that flow in your veins. You hate that person, period

So, do you hate that person because the way s/he is, or

you hate that person

because

you see yourself in her/him?

You hate that person because there is a tiny fraction of that person that you don't like reminds of yourself.

After all when you admire a person, it is not that person you admire, but the great quality in that person that reminds of yourself.

So, you see whenever we react in negative way to some negative statements we confirm the statement is right.

Everytime we react to a negative statement in a negative way we give power to that statement. The more we react the move powerful that statement has become. We empower the statement. We enable the statement.

Everytime we react negatively to a negative statement, we agree to the person who makes the statetment. We put power in their hands by acting dumb.

We jump and we dance according to the music they play.

We send a message to them:

You're right, you know myself better than I know myself.

And you add,

You see, I've been busy all my life

• judging others,
• making assumptions
• hating people who have different opinion from me,
• excluding people who see the world in another shade
• stomping people who don't see eye to eye with me
• following orders without asking questions,
• and the list goes on.............

I don't have time to evaluate and to self inventory myself.

The Tongue

Guess who I see at Border Book Cafe this evening? The Tongue himself. I'm heading toward Sociology shelves when I spot him standing between Native Indian and psychology shelves talking on the cell phone. I look at him as I look at any strangers a quick glance over and keep walking , but a voice in my head says, I've seen this man before .

Since I've been working with men and women in substance abuse recovery, his physical appearance reminds me of them. And I think he is one of many faces I see on the streets, homeless shelters and alleys in this city.

Before I take a turn to the next shelves, I look back at him, and at the same time he lifts his head and I look full into his *thousands-cracked-face* (muka retak seribu, as my sister liked to refer of Charles Bronson's face when she saw him on tv).

ohmigod, that's him. He had a leather black jacket on, faded blue denim jeans and black shoes and he is skinny and small.

I guess not many people in the store are aware of him, or perhaps they do, but he is from another era, I guess he doesn't cause much of commotion.

When I'm at the cashier to pay for my books (hah......hah.....hah.....I break my promise to go easy of spending my hard earn money on books) I ask the cashier if Mick Jagger is in the store.

Yes, he is.

*    * the term is nothing to do with a crack as a drug.

Long Live the King

Sometimes I bought certain products because of my weakness of the beauty. The way they're wrapped in  earth tone color tissue papers, or in a misty jar or even a book, I fall for its cover. It sounds like an adolescent's character.

That was how I got my first little jar of pink peppercorns at Marshall about a month ago.  It is like a few things in my life, I procrastinate. I've seen it before but I put aside the idea getting it.

Until one day I asked myself, "Why does this pinky pepperthing fascinates me?" Everytime I was at the Marshalls (three different locations in the city) I would picked up the little jar, held it in my hand and looked at it as it was grown in Pluto. Finally I bought it.

When I got home I couldn't wait to put my hands on it.

I had grilled chicken Caesar salad for dinner, so I dropped about a dozen peppercorns in my petite mortar & pestle and whacked the peppercorns a few times. And boy oh boy.....The citrus zest fragrant that floated in my kitchen after a few whacks convinced me to convert to pink peppercorns.

I scooped them out and sprinkled on my salad. After a couple of bites I was hooked.

Fast forward to present day:

This morning before I left for work, I took a piece of king mackerel fillet out from freezer and left it in a sink. Later, when I got home from work,  the King was  soft and ready.

I whacked a handful of pink peppercorns, smacked and chopped fresh ginger and garlic. I tossed the King with grapeseed oil, a pinch of salt,  squeezed some lime juice, and combination of pinky, garlic and ginger. I put it aside. I peeled the mango, julienned its juicy flesh, sliced a half of yellow onion, chopped a red chilly and tossed them together.

Before I jumped into a shower, I put marinated King in the broiler.

Luxury

Summer is gone, for a warmweathersuckers like me 65 degree in mid September is more than enough. It's marhvelous. I skip my Sunday morning run. I scrub the bath tub, mop the kitchen floor and feed the birds outside my kitchen window instead.

I rearrange my sewing/writing corner, organize fat-quarter fabric according to shades and colors and pick up more than a dozen slim head pin scatter under the sewing table.

The idea of organizing my two-waiting-to-collapse-overflow bookshelves cross my mind, but I know I would be in the house all day and miss the glorious day outside.

I take an inbound train and get off at Central Square. I get myself a cup of coffee, a plain croissant and sit at one of those tiny steel tables on the sidewalk outside Au Bon Pain.

Dunking my croissant in my coffee, a latest book in my hand, a warm sun on my head is a luxury I'm going to miss when the temperature dips low. But as for now, I enjoy every bit of it.

And of course it's a sin if I do not go to Rodney as I am sitting less than twenty feet away from it. I couldn't take my eyes off a beautiful armoir waiting for somebody who has an extra $575 in her bank account. Anyway I leave Rodney three hours later with 7 used books minus the armoir.

Sacrifice

I was so busy picking up macadamia nuts from brazilnuts, almonds, pecans, cashewnuts, peanuts and every single nuts that came in a can of mixed nuts I didn't hear the voice asking me about the shuttle bus.

When she asked me for a second time, I was ready to toss a fat macadamia nut into my mouth. Embarassed, I closed my mouth minus the fat nut.

"Sorry, come again?"

"You are waiting for a bus to tren station? " She carefully mouthed a questions as it was a delicate porcelain tea cup. And she pronounced station as we say Nasution.

I kicked my antenna from her nap.

"Kamu dari Indonesia? And yes, I'm waiting for a shuttle to a train station" Are you from Indonesia?

She gasped and quickly brought her hand to her mouth. She giggled. I could see the both corners of her mouth turned upward. Her eyes smiled along with her mouth.

"Mana kamu tau aku dari Indonesia?" How do you know I'm from Indonesia?

"Oh saya ni nenek tua, lihat....." I pointed to my head "hampir separuh rambut saya sudah bertukar warna." I'm and old lady, almost half of my hair has turned to white.

She laughed louder, and pressed her hand harder to her mouth.

Even if she didn't ask me about the shuttle bus, I would've guessed about her originality. It has nothing to do with stereotype, but after two years working closely with young Indonesian girls, I trusted my instinct this time.

When the company I used to work with back in Penang, Malaysia began to hire Indonesian girls, 80%-85% of the assemblers in my production lines were Indonesian girls.

Their small, slender bodies, their sense of humor, their adorable unconscious act when they laugh: they quickly covered their mouth and bend down their upper bodies to suppress their laughters, the way they had their head scarves on their heads. The way they walked, cautious because they didn't know what would they see on the next corner, but they put the brave faces and moved forward. They had no choice because they were the breadwinners............

She has it all.

As we waited for the shuttle bus, I learned about here: Her name: Let me call her, Sri. She has been here for five years. Her husband and her daughter are coming next week for good. She hasn't seen her daughter nor her husband for the last five years.

She asked me if I could talk to her in English, but slowly, as she is in ESL and GED classes at International Institute in DonTon (Downtown).

The II is assisting her to get her husband and her daughter here as they've been helping her since she got here.

When I told her I'm going home for Hari Raya next month, she told me she's meeting her mother in Kuala Lumpur in December.

"Your mother lives in Malaysia?"

"No, no, my mother in Indonesia."

"Why are you meeting her in Malaysia?"

She answered my question with a nervous laugh. She played the ring that held the tips of her blue head scarf and looked away.

"Too bad I won't be there until December."

"Yes, I can visit you with my mother."

"Well, we can always find time to get together if you like when I come back."

"Kamu betul-betul sirios?" Are you really serious? She looked at me as I was pulling her legs.

"Why not?" I took out my card  from my purse and wrote down my home phone number at the back of the card.

"This is where I work. Call me if you need anything other than money okay?" She laughed. This time she forgot to cover her mouth.

Justification

I've just started on a novel Broken Verses by Kamila Shamsie. I find it hilarious when I get to this part.

It's in a TV studio in Karachi, a chat between two persons:

"You just go watch your MTV if all you can do with the local stuff is complain."

"Oh, baba, I'm saying the local stuff should try less harder to be like MTV."

"O-ay, listen. You really planning to boycott American goods when they attack Iraq?"

"Hanh, well we have to feel like we're doing something right?"

"OK, does that mean boycotting movies and music as well? I mean what if they attack before the new  Lord of The Rings?"

"No, no, no problem. We got that on pirated videos and DVDs. So when you buy those you're just helping local industry. Same with music. And computer software."

"Great, great."

"Yeah, great, but there's one problem remaining. Petrol pumps. Between work, home, supermarket, sabziwallah and my parents' house, there's only Shell and Caltex pumps. What do I do about that?"

A moment of silence. "Well.....you have to be realistic, after all. You need the car. The car needs petrol. What to do?"

"I'll tell you what to do. You want to piss off Americans, there's only one thing to do. Vote in the fundos. I swear next election, I'm doing that. Last time I was temped. Next time I will for sure."

"You just shut up and go sit in your corner. You vote in the fundos, they'll do nothing about the petrol pumps, and just ban all your precious music videos and put us women in burkhas."

"And anyway, the Americans like it these days if you piss them off. You piss them off, they bomb you."

"Seriously! But listen, yaar, you think the mullahs are going to join the government?"

"God forbid. If they do, who knows what killjoy laws they'll try and pass. Remember in the eighties how boring life to with that pretend Islamization?"

I underlined: we have to feel like we are doing something right.

Sometimes we forget, it's ourselves that we are trying to kid not others.