My maternal grandma came from Kampung Nangka (Jackfruit Village) here in Sibu but during my growing years, she was living in a house elsewhere but my grand-aunts, her sisters, and some of my uncles and aunties had houses in the vicinity and I was living in our own wooden house at the edge so of course, visits were frequent and regular all the while. Later, my grandma and aunties moved back to the village and lived in this house till they passed on.
We invited our aunt, one of our grand-aunts’ daughters, to our reunion gathering on Saturday and she invited all of us to her house the following night…
Of course it does not look anything like what it was like during my childhood years – time passes and things change. Nothing ever stays the same, does it?
I cooked this kampung-style tempuyak prawn dish to bring along…
…and my missus made some rojak using the special Bintangor rojak sauce that I bought…
…on a recent trip there. She had used up all the crushed peanuts that came with the sauce for something else so she added some peanut butter to it for that extra fragrance and it did taste pretty good, not bad at all.
It so happened that my niece went on a day trip to Bintangor and she brought back a couple of packets of the original stuff to share with everybody at the party…
– the authentic unadulterated Bintangor rojak. Everybody loved it tremendously and now there is a standing order for anybody who would be going to the little town to grab as many bottles as he or she possibly can to be distributed to all and sundry.
My aunt cooked this sayur masak lemak/sayur lodeh…
…that everyone praised to the skies but I did not touch it at all as there were slices of bamboo shoots in it. I once had two slices and came down with a gout attack and could not walk for a week! Tsk! Tsk!
She also cooked this…
…what she called butter chicken though I could not detect any taste of the butter in it but despite that, it was very nice and I enjoyed it very much.
This was her prawn with pineapple dish…
…and she also fried some noodles…
…and mihun…
…as well.
She also got somebody in the kampung to cook a few dishes such as this very nice daging masak hitam (black-cooked beef)…
– a special Sarawak specialty. You will find the slices of beef in that thick and black but VERY delicious gravy that goes so absolutely well with rice.
We also had chicken curry and ayam masak merah (red-cooked chicken)…
…but I can’t seem to find the photograph I took of the curry but never mind! I’m sure you all jolly well know what that looks like! LOL!!!
A cousin of mine, back from KL, bought these ngor hiang aka lor bak (meat rolls)…
…from this stall. I guess she went there to eat the tee piang and could not eat these simultaneously so she decided to tapao some to bring to the party. I bought these once – the guy told me that they had bay kah (mackerel/ikan tenggiri) together with the minced meat in them but I did not think they were all that great – the ones my missus makes would be a whole lot nicer…and she uses prawns!
Unlike the previous night, there wasn’t any more singing or dancing but the unmistakable loud chatter and roaring laughter everytime the family members get together would be enough to bring the house down and guess who stole the limelight that night…
*Photo courtesy of one of my cousins*
I’m sexy and I know it!!! Muahahahahaha!!!!!
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 