Ah Ma (Ah Ma = Grandma)

Ah ma told me about a week or two in advance that she was going to cook some of her signature dishes for us (us = Desmond and family) because Chinese New Year is coming up. On the menu were Ngoh Hiang (minced meat rolled up in bean curd skin) and Sea Cucumber with Duck Stew. I told her I would go over to help her. I know how tedious it is to make Ngoh Hiang. I've helped her once before and it'd took us a almost a day just to make that dish.

Desmond sent Alyssa and I to my parents' place. I was really excited about helping Ah Ma with the dishes. I haven't done things with her in a long while, ever since I was pregnant. Sometimes it's nice to be doing something with her. It reminds me of the times when I was young, when she would take me out, buy me stuff, albeit nothing expensive or fancy, or simply, when she was just telling me stories of how she used to toil for a living and imparted me with values which I will grow up with.

I could tell she was very excited about making food for me. The stew was already boiling and much of the preparation work had already been done for the Ngoh Hiang when I got there. All the work that was left was simply to wrap the meat and fry them. But damn, Alyssa just had to be a bad girl today. She kept crying non-stop ever since we got to my parents' place and all I managed to help her with was to wrap 5 rolls of Ngoh Hiang.

I realised Ah Ma has really aged when I saw the prep she had done. The ingredients that were mixed together for the Ngoh Hiang were coarser than usual. Ah Ma has high standards when it comes to cooking for us - this couldn't be a result of her carelessness. The preparation must have been really hard work. Yet, she took the trouble to make that dish for me because she knows I like it.

I carried Alyssa around the house to soothe her and sometimes we'd popped to the kitchen to watch Ah Ma cook. Somehow, I found her appearing smaller than I ever remembered. I'd remembered a strong and sturdy lady taking me to the market when I was small, and carrying 5 or 6 bags full of grocery when we returned. However, she just looked so thin and frail today.

After the cooking had been done, she scooped some of the stew into a container for me so I could bring it home, while leaving the rest of it for my family for dinner tonight. While she was doing that, I wondered why she kept digging into the stew and hardly put anything into the container. She said, 'all the sea cucumber has melted.' Fact was, sea cucumber hadn't melt. It was that her vision deteriorated so much, she couldn't make out the sea cucumber from the mushrooms. She must have given me all the sea cucumber in the stew because that's all we got to eat during dinner.

Later in the night, she called to check on how we'd found the food.

To me, it had been the most delicious dinner ever.