For mama…

Most people would remember September 11 as the day when that horrendous event took place and shook the whole world, but actually, my mother’s birthday falls on that date too. She had suffered from some medical ailments and was in and out of the medical centre a couple of times. Thankfully, she is now physically healthy except that having been confined to the bed for so long, she is now unable to walk.

Thus, there would not be any point buying her clothes, jewellery or even giving her an ang pao…so in the end, I decided to get her this fruit basket…

I cooked chicken soup in the morning so that we could have mee sua (Foochow longevity noodles) and for dinner, we ordered a few dishes from the restaurant in order that we could have a special dinner together with her at home, such as this dish of stewed pork…

…that was supposed to go with these man tao (steamed buns)…

…and fried snowfish…

…plus two other vegetable dishes. I also decided to fry some mihun with corned beef, so I got the ingredients ready…

– chopped garlic, sliced Bombay onions, cabbage cut into thin strips, corned beef and mihun – soaked in hot water to soften. I fried the onions in a bit of oil and put in the corned beef and after a while, I removed that from the wok. Then I fried the garlic in some oil till it turned golden brown before I put in the mihun and stirred the garlic and oil into it. After doing that, I put in the pre-fried corned beef and onions and added chicken stock granules (instead of salt and msg)…and mixed thoroughly. When the mihun was just about ready, I put in the cabbage and mixed it well with the mihun. Then, I sprinkled chopped spring onions over it and it was ready…

I would have added some eggs but my mother seems to have developed an allergy to them, causing her to itch and I did not add chillies as well as the rest of the family would not be thus inclined.

But I would think that for someone my mother’s age – after having devoted her entire life to her family – it was not what expensive presents we would give her or what delicious food we had for dinner that would matter most to her, but to have everybody by her side on her very auspicious day. We love you, mummy…and I hope you had had a Happy Birthday. May God shower His Blessings upon you throughout the coming year!