My mom used to say that I was a very good reader of her face. When I was younger, apparently, I only needed one look at her face to realize whether or not she approved of my behavior at the time, or whether it was safe for me to do whatever I had in mind to do. This was especially so when we were in public, and I needed to know whether it was ok for me to accept any thing that was then being offered to me by the adults. Apparently, I was able to read her face and get the message from her whether I was supposed to say “Yes” or “No” to the offer. I was also able to change my behavior according to how her face looked to me. If I was misbehaving, I needn’t be told, apparently. Her look of disapproval was enough to make me chnage my behavior. I don’t know how true that is, but that was what Mom said I was when I was younger. Perhaps, that explains why I have so much work to do with my psychoanalyst, but that is another story. What I wanted to share today is this ability to read faces. I was reminding of it again by a couple of incidents this morning at home.

I was in the kitchen helping my wife prepare a dish for dinner tonight. We are going to have some friends over and my wife has chosen to prepare a couple of kampung favorites - dishes from home (which for us could have several meanings, but this time, it means from the land of our birth. The two dishes are beef rendang, beef stew with thick coconut curry sauce (what we call “dry curry” but no, it is not dry at all, but delicious is what it is!) and nasi lemak (which our Hong Kong friends sometimes transliterate it to mean something quite nasty in Cantonese - is you are a Cantonese speaker you might be able to decipher that one, but I won’t let on here what it is…). It is a delicious rice that has been boiled in a coconut base, with fried dried fish cooked in a rich chilly sauce with lots of onions and tomatoes and dried shrimp, served with cut fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, and boiled eggs. Yummilicious!

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