Writing about Cooking in Malaysia and Singapore

Cooking is as much a creative and fulfilling process as writing, and in the past few days, I’ve found cooking the easier of the two:).

I cooked over the weekend, and spent seven straight hours yesterday, cooking for friends, and did not mind it in the least. It can be such a sensory, even sensual act. Your ability to smell, touch, and see count as much, if not more, than your ability to taste. I have written before about how therapeutic it can be.

Cucinare e’ ugualmente creativo e soddisfacente come scrivere, e nei giorni scorsi, ho trovato che  cucinare sia piu facile tra le due cose. Ho cucinato per tutto il fine settimana, e ieri ho passato sette ore  cucinando per gli amici, e questo non mi ha dato nemmeno un po di fastidio. Cucinando tutti i nostri sensi si attivano fino a raggiungere anche una forte sensualita’. La capacita’ di sentire i profumi, di toccare, e di vedere, conta quasi come, se non di piu’, dell’abilita’ di assagiare. Ho gia scritto prima su quanto questo possa essere terapeutico.

In Malaysia, people understand good food, and are willing to go to great lengths to get it. A drive to the other end of town for a particular bowl of noodles is more a norm than an exception. And this fits right in with my gluttonous nature–my GPS has more food destinations saved than anything else.

The year I spent in Singapore was not really such a great cooking phase, because seeing the ubiquitous stick-thin women in mini-skirts killed my appetite for cooking (pun intended).

But now I’m back in the land of people who are forever discussing, ruminating, arguing over what to eat, and I’m happy.