Christmas and Mum's Visit

I felt that five weeks flew by pretty quickly as we dropped mum off at the airport last night. I haven't been spending much time on the computer for blogging and the like while she was out here so I figured it's about time now to catch up on things.

Most of our time with mum was spent, as is expected in this family, discussing and consuming copious amounts of food. There were lots of favourites from home that Alison and I both missed and thought to replicate with mum's guidance over here in Brisbane, one of the simpler ones being Tau Suan which we had the last time we were back in Malaysia. Now that we discovered a source of pandan leaf in the packed freezers of a grocery store in Sunnybank along with deep fried bread from the same provisioner, we should be able to make our own batch as we need.



Even minor improvements to the house were with the view of expanding our culinary options. Alsie and I have often discussed the merits of having an outdoor stove for all the stir fries and oil splatters that accompany mum's efforts in the kitchen. While the results are often great for the taste buds it does little for our figure and wooden floor boards. Simply buying an outdoor cooker would have been insufficient without accommodating for the fatty projectiles of enthusiastic wok-manship, which was why finding a cheap splash back solution was a necessity. A quick trip to Ikea solved this for us as we picked up a half dozen DIY kitchen panels that we could affix with liquid nails to protect the wooden enclosure and introduce a fiery highlight of its own. While there we also picked up a handy side table which now completes the outdoor kitchen.



Mum made full use of the area to prepare a bevy of delicious dinners, much to the contentment of our bellies and polished wood floors. Char Keuy Teow showed up on the menu a couple of times now that we were finally cooking with gas.



The eating certainly wasn't confined to Brisbane, as we were also treated to the annual Christmas feast in Toowoomba. It's always a treat to spend the season with mum around but this year was a little smaller with some uncles and aunts with other commitments. The volume of food however had not diminished to account for fewer mouths so there were considerable left overs. John's ham was juicy, succulent and expertly cut as always. Mum contributed an asian prawn salad with a beautiful spicy bite. Sheena's terrine was under appreciated by the party but I devoured as much as my belt would permit. It was a wonderful way to top off a little over a month of indulgent eating that must now cease as I've put on at least 1.5KG according to our scrutinising scales. Well... we'll stop once the last of the Christmas chocolates have been dealt with of course.



Time certainly does seem to fly when you're having fun. Mum will be out again in May for a short visit and I'm sure it'll be a blink before it's next Christmas, which she hopes to once again celebrate with us in the Southern Hemisphere. This visit was certainly good fun, but something tells me that the next few will be even more special. For mothers and grandmothers alike.