Plain and simple…

In 1978, I got my first posting as a qualified college-trained teacher in Kanowit where I rented this little room…

…on the first floor of one of the shops for RM60.00 a month for two years. Of course, there wasn’t any air-conditioner there at the time and the room was like an oven as it got the sun on the wall by the side in the morning and through the windows in front all afternoon.

In 1980, the Kanowit Garden was completed and made available for occupancy. My colleague and I rented the upper floor of the double-storey terraced house and I moved there that year. The house owner had a shop in town and he and his family stayed there but every night, he would send his old father over – he slept in the room downstairs and every morning, they would send him his breakfast, something very plain and simple – just a bowl of plain porridge and one fried omelette. The old man would eat that and later, he would stroll to their shop in town where he would stay till they sent him to the house again in the evening, probably after dinner.

Personally, I do enjoy a simple breakfast like that – plain porridge with some simple condiments to go with it, nothing fancy and that was what I had the other morning. There was a little bit of rice left in the fridge so I put it in a pot and added a whole lot of water and boiled it till it had dried up a bit and there wasn’t that much water anymore…

This is the rice that we are eating right now – my missus says it is freshly harvested unadulterated lakia bee (ethnic Dayak rice) that is a whole lot nicer than what you can get at the shops and supermarkets.

To go with the porridge, I fried an omelette (two eggs)…

…and a handful of dried anchovies (ikan bilis), deep fried and sprinkled with a pinch of low GI brown sugar to balance its saltiness. There wasn’t any leftover vegetables in the fridge and I did not feel like cooking any so I took my girl’s pickled daikon and cut a few slices of it to go with my porridge. She uses it to make her sushi and whatever Korean dishes that she would cook sometimes.

I was not planning on having porridge for breakfast that morning otherwise, I could have defrosted one of my kilat in the freezer and fried it …

That would go so well together, I’m sure.

Of course, I still have a bottle of the imported made-in-the-UK real beef Bovril…

…so I could enjoy a bit of it in the porridge. I bought two bottles in May and I’ve finished one since – and just the other day, I heard somebody complaining that it is presently out of stock, not available again!!! Looks like I’ve to scrimp and save and must not be too generous with it when using it to cook my Bovril noodles…or eating it with my porridge.

We also had some salted eggs and 皮蛋 (pídàn) or century eggs in the house but I did not bother with those as I felt that what I had was more than enough for how I would like to have it – plain and simple!