at your service

Something happened to me this weekend that I will not forget for a long, long time. Husband and I were in Frankfurt for our holiday long weekend, and when we are there, we always attend the church of his childhood. His family has been a part of this church since the mid 80s, so the history and relationships there run deep. It is a lovely place where I felt instantly welcomed by people who did not know me, and where unexpectedly I have formed meaningful relationships of my own.

Small One’s arrival meant spending Sundays in the baby room as he becomes increasingly vocal and needs more entertaining. Their room is lovely, spacious, incomprehensibly clean considering the fact that it’s a room for children. (I have a suspicion that German babies are as clean as their grown up counterparts, but I digress.)

Last Sunday I realized that my son needed something to eat, so I was going to go back into the auditorium for the snacks. One of the young women who was there to look after the kids, told me she had a banana and would that be ok for him? She had long brown hair, lovely eyes and smile, and she must be in her early 20s or late teens, in other words not someone I would expect to be attune to mom needs.

Small One loves bananas, so I found a high chair and sat him in it. She returned to me with a smile, and a plastic bowl of chopped banana pieces.

This may seem normal to you, but I was left standing there with a bowl of bananas and a slightly shocked look on my face. Were it not for Small One’s hunger, I might have just remained standing there for a while with my mouth open.

She had taken the banana for me, she had peeled it for me, chopped it into bite-sized pieces for me, and put it into a plastic bowl before she gave it to me.  Maybe it was a simple gesture for her, and maybe she didn’t even think much of it. There wasn’t any fanfare about the way she served me, but she had no idea that in that moment she was doing something that touched me deeply.

The loss of dignity is something I grieve regularly when I’m out with Small One. I don’t get to sit down with a plate of food and eat the way I used to because there are baby hands everywhere trying to put things into his mouth. If he screams in public, there isn’t a mute button to push, so the glares from others have to be stomached while trying to soothe a baby who will not be soothed. Food ends up on my clothes, on his clothes, in my hair and I’m sure that there are scenarios I haven’t even thought of that will happen in the future. But it’s ok, this is part of the package of parenting, and we roll with it.

All of us roll on with the situations in our lives. Small children aren’t the only dignity robbers, of course; all of us have been treated badly, rejected, betrayed by people we loved and trusted, have illnesses we battle against and on a very basic level, all of us have bad days (and bad hair days).

The moment I had with this young, long-brown-haired German woman on Sunday gave me back some of the dignity that I lose on a day-to-day basis. Why? Because she took the time to serve me and service says, You are worth it. 

I inhabit a world of leaders whose long titles, substantial bank accounts, multiple degrees, and big egos supposedly give them the right to positions, power and influence. Every sphere of our lives has some ladder to climb or the next level to attain, real or imagined, and as we climb higher, all of us in some way or another forget to do the gritty work of people care. The work that involves washing windows and cleaning toilets, babysitting for free, listening, chopping bananas and putting it in a bowl. Service. Acts of kindness that say to someone, You are not alone. I can see that you need help. I’m here to help you because you are worth it. 

When I read that list I wrote, my honest thought in response to cleaning someone else’s toilet or babysitting someone else’s children is, No thank you. I won’t go into my excuses because at the foundation of it all is this one belief: I am above that. I’ve cleaned other’s toilets. I’ve babysat other people’s children. It’s not my “season” to do that anymore. I’m in a different place; I’ve moved on to a different level. I am above that. 

It’s a lie.

No one graduates from the gritty work of serving people; it is the school we attend for our whole lives for it is the better way. 

dairy-less sauce

I have nothing against cows and milk products. Gelato puts a big smile on my face as does some cheeses, and during my pregnancy I drank half a litre of milk every day. I couldn’t get enough of it. But when it comes to cooking, I prefer sauces that don’t have cream and have a lighter taste.

Sauces don’t need cream for good taste. I’ve found the combination of tasty veggies, white wine and stock to be more than enough for a light, delicious sauce that tastes great with pasta or rice. This dinner is as basic and easy as it gets. It’s a good choice for a mid-week supper, and we usually toss it with pasta. Lots of other veggies could be added to it, but I like this combination (and Small One does, too).

• Easy Chicken    Cube chicken breast and brown in a pan with olive oil until all pieces are sealed and then set aside. Add some oil to the pan and put in sliced mushrooms with crushed garlic (if I had an onion, I would have fried that in the oil first). After a few minutes, add some vegetable stock (I always add white wine at this point, but we were out, so I went straight to the stock), and add the chicken back to the pan and let it all bubble together. This is where  I would add herbs and spices depending on which direction you want to go with the dish. Yesterday I added a chopped chili for heat, but I kept it simple and left it at that. At the very end, I put in a cube of frozen spinach and let it dissolve and mixed the whole thing together.

travel food

Some of my most-treasured family memories involve a moving vehicle, my parents and my sisters. Manila traffic was totally unpredictable so a simple trip to go shopping could take a few hours. And these malls were not far away from our house. It was just the way life was, so we sat tight, sang our hearts out or talked and made the best of it.

Our real road trips were awesome as well. Every year we took a trip to Baguio, which was a famous Philippine city in the mountains. When the Americans were there, they built a base of sorts in Baguio, so there was a fun mini golf course and other things like that. The air was clean, and it was often quite a bit cooler than Manila. We would leave around four in the morning to escape the traffic, and I remember twice we stopped at a Shakey’s pizza place to watch one of the NBA final’s matches (Chicago Bulls vs. Utah Jazz). The best memories.

We always took food with us to eat on the road. Amma – my mother – made Sri Lankan treats like patties and banana bread or brownies. Every now and then we stopped at McDonalds. Shakeys was a real treat, but we couldn’t really miss game four of the NBA finals.

To this day, one of the things I anticipate most before a road trip is the food I will eat. The junk food. The packed food. All of it. I prefer the junk food any day and frequently find myself whining for KFC or McDonalds, but Husband prefers the packed lunches of good health. Here’s a pasta salad I made for our last trip. Anything could go into this, but I used a lot of veggies and beans to give it some bulk. A bit of chorizo and the basil gave the salad a nice kick.

• Simple Pasta Salad     Chop cooking chorizo into small pieces and fry until crispy, use a paper towel to absorb all the oil. Cook any kind of pasta (I used wholewheat penne). Drain canned beans and canned corn. Chop a red capsicum. Wash spinach and basil. Mix together and you’re done. I sprinkled it with salt, pepper, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

remembering christmas

Christmas is gone. I felt it when I walked through our still-fully-decorated flat in the middle of January. Everything was in its place, even the place settings from our Christmas table and the table cloth, but Christmas – in the “feeling” sense – was gone.

I started taking down garlands of golden balls yesterday, followed by the yellow manger-like straw and the IKEA snowflake lights came out of the jar. My favourite baubles will stay hanging on our tree branch. I can’t let go of them for now.

Mothers are recorders – first Christmas, first high chair, first crib, first smile (well, Husband got that one), first laugh, first tooth, first steps, first crawl, first roll and first foods. Each one is exciting. You feel proud of this tiny person’s ability to reach another moment, another milestone. Each one is bittersweet because it is another step of baby’s life away from you.

You want that as well. No one desires for their child to remain in the same place physically, emotionally and spiritually their whole life. We want them to grow in every way. But there is a silent sadness in my heart with each step Small One takes in the direction of independence. I hold on to these moments as I put our first Christmas together into boxes hoping that memory will not fail me as the years pass and praying for a strong heart to believe that the best is still to come.

orange chicken

Monday nights can be a bit hectic as I need to cook and eat something before I rush out of the house for a few hours in the evening, husband comes home when I come home and it’s nice then to have dinner straight away. I had about 30 minutes to cook, a bit of chicken and nothing else very promising in the refrigerator. One day I will learn how to live by a meal plan.

In my head popped this idea – “Orange chicken.” Don’t know where it came from; I think it was God. I vaguely remember some orange chicken dishes in a Chinese buffet, but it’s not something I’ve eaten elsewhere. I quickly did a recipe search, and all the recipes would take too long and involved baking. So I improvised, and made my own. It was amazing, and I made it again for myself the next day (pictured).

• Orange Chicken score your chicken breasts and start them frying in a tiny bit of oil. Make a mixture of orange juice, honey, Chinese 5 spice (or any spice that you like), crushed garlic and chili flakes. I don’t have quantities because I just made, tasted and adjusted the mixture – it was a bit like a marinade – as I went along. There should be a good amount of it though, enough to cover the chicken in the pan. Flip the chicken and pour the mixture over it, cover and let it bubble. When the sauce thickens and the chicken is finished, you are done.