Life in 2020 ~ When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemon Cake!
Life in 2020 was something that we never imagined before – the Government asked us to stay at home in order to flatten the curve or in other words to contain the spread of COVID-19. Never in my life would I’ve thought that we could be heroes by just staying at home. No need to wear cape or have super power, just slip into your PJs, minding our own business at home and making sure to have very minimal physical contact with the outside world. Well, I guess this is every introvert’s dream 😆
But then again, what we thought to be a short-term stint, turnout to be much longer than what we had anticipated earlier on. The PKP or MCO had started since the mid of March and was supposed to be until the end of the abovementioned month. Little did we know that based on the assessment of the situation by the Ministry of Health and the National Security Council, the restriction order was extended to another fortnight, then another…. and it continued to be extended on for a good 56 days in total! And that was under PKP/MCO only. After that we had Perintah Kawalan Pergerakan Bersyarat (PKPB), then Perintah Kawalan Pergerakan Pemulihan (PKPP) etc.
It was fun to stay at home 24/7 at first, but after a while, we started to feel restless. Even the introverted me felt a little anxious for having to be confined for too long. Whilst we still have to work from home, the kids were having online classes etc., it was still stressful. That and with all the uncertainties that came with the pandemic, made us only more miserable.
So, we turned our attention to other stuff ~ things that within our control. One of it was to unleash the inner Master Chefs in us, hahaha. Since we could not really go out during PKP, we had to prepare our own meals most of the time. But after awhile, we got tired of eating almost the same food over and over again. Moreover, Ramadhan fell on April this year. For the first time ever in Malaysia, there were no pasar / bazaar Ramadhan – the most awaited place to be with endless rows of stalls selling various local delicacies ~ that for some reasons was hard to find during other time. Pasar Ramadhan is a very huge deal in Malaysia. Putrajaya used to have one of the largest Pasar Ramadhan with hundreds of stalls and thousands of customers daily. But this year, there were no huge Pasar Ramadhan ~ food stalls were allowed to operate though, but had to adhere with very strict SOP.
Therefore, in order to fulfil our food cravings (and to kill all the spare time as well), we challenged ourselves to cook various type of food including those that we only bought before, like apam balik. Selalu tak pandang sangat pun apam balik ni, tapi tiba-tiba time PKP teringin sangat nak makan 😄 Then when it came to iftar and moreh, we usually had a kuih Melayu as desserts - selalu beli je ikut sedap tekak. But this year when I had to make our own, baru tahu renyah rupanya buat kuih Melayu ni. Now I'm more appreciative towards every single kuih that being served to me. Kudos to the cook!
So what happened when everybody suddenly wanted to be a cook? 3 things actually:
1 - Online cooking channels became really a hit and we even had our favourite, the soft spoken Sugu Pavithra. From a simple housewife from an estate in Perak, Sugu has risen to be a social media sensation and a national sweetheart within a short period of time during the PKP all thanks to her sweet demeanor, fluency in Bahasa Malaysia, super shiny periuk/kuali and fuss-free recipes of Indian dishes that we, Malaysians love so much.
2 - Food ingredients crisis - with everybody becoming a chef now, we found that some food ingredients suddenly became scarce. I myself found that instant yeast and ground peanuts were 'vanished' from the racks at the grocery stores for quite some times. Oh and yes, who could forget the epic Roti Gardenia crisis! And that was also the reason for the yeast crisis as many people attempted to bake their own bread.
3 - Cooking is not for everyone - with so many 'first times', there were also some failures. Even if we follow the recipe word-by-word, with little or no experience at all in making the dishes, we tend to make mistake that could turned a lovely meal into a huge disaster. And what did we do about it? Instead of menangis di bucu dapur, we 'embraced our failures' and post in online for the whole world to see 😄 A FB Group Masak Apa Tak Jadi Hari Ni was form during the PKP period and it became a place for Malaysians to share their failed cooking attempts for a good laugh not forgetting as a platform for us to learn something new as some members are generous enough to share their tips in doing it right.
Luckily I had my own first trials too and it turned out okay, so I did not have to share in the FB group hahaha. The trick were only to try recipes only from trusted bloggers/cooks, if not, try to compare a few recipes until you found a more 'sensible' version and follow the ingredients and instructions carefully.
I'm not a pro at cooking nor baking, but I found it to be satisfying ~ especially during PKP. It gave me some sense of control and waiting while the dish being cooked/baked/chilled turned out to be very exciting as I did not really sure how it would turned out. And when the dish turned out okay, it was sort of my accomplishments of the day. I guess everybody has their own coping mechanism during this trying times and mine is amateur cooking/baking. Little things that helps to keep our sanity intact 😁
Here are some of my PKP/MCO Masak-masak Collection:
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| Assorted Desserts |
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| 1st attempt buat Dendeng Berlado. Renyah dibuat, sedap dimakan |
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| Bangga sebab dapat buat mee kari sedap hahaha |
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| First attempt Roti Puri & Aloo Gobi. Hampir menitiskan mata bila roti tu mengembang dalam kuali |
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