New Year Family Dinner@Saturday

New Year Family Dinner@Saturday

To honor the tradition of Saturday family dinner, I have decided to name it Family Dinner@Saturday. It’s become a tradition for the entire extended family to gather every Saturday. I’ve been variously pitied and envied when I tell others about this. I don’t take offense – after all those WERE emotions I variously felt over the years, depending very much on which stage of my life I was at. Of the 25 years I have lived, I’ve been variously:

v Cute and adored and precious – Stage 1, Aged 0-3
v Somewhat sidelined but still adored – Stage 2, Aged 3-8
v Increasingly weird and anti-social. Wearing of hobo-like clothes a regularity. Refusal to smile at family photos a tradition – Stage 3, Aged 9-13
v Full-on whack fucked up and terribly unhappy and misfit-ted – Stage 4, Aged 13-15
v More socially normalized (smiles at family photos out of increasing vanity) but still at war with parents and sister – Stage 5, Aged 15-16
v Would-be rebel: Tattoos, smoking, clubbing, drunkenness (don’t wet your pants – still VERY mild compared to… er, “people” I know) – Stage 6, Aged 17-19
v Normalized due to first serious boyfriend, plus like what the fuck? Aren’t you a bit too old for this shit anymore? – Stage 7, Aged 19-20
v Successful at school and other endeavors, as a result of finding true calling at uni, thus resulting in ever-bettering of relationship with parents; trying to improve with sister; at peace with extended family – Stage 8, Aged 20-22
v Furious and hateful at family for being fucked up about breakup with aforementioned trophy boyfriend, characteristic of not wanting to attend F.Dinner@Saturday –Stage 9, Aged 22+
v Quickly détente-d resulting from even-more-wonderful new boyfriend, characterized by frenzied attendance of F.Dinner@Saturday – Stage 10, Aged 22plus-23
v Official entered to adulthood on selling my body and soul to the societal machine OH I MEAN settling down in “holy” matrimony – Stage 11, Aged 23 to present

As you can see, I am currently in Stage 11. The progress into Stage 12 (a repeat if Stage 9, but this time because of refusal to pop out the sprogs) is imminent, unless one party (guess which) backs-the-FUCK-off or the other (guess which) goes into hiding in, like, Lithuania. On a slight deviation (but considering how far we’ve so far deviated from the topic of New Year’s Dinner, there is nothing more to lose) why is squeezing squalling wrinkled heads out of one’s vagina (erm… I do suspect that came out the wrong way) seems to be the next logical step after getting married. Like how marriage after dating someone after, like, seventy-billion years is the next logical step. (From the little timeline provided above, a brief explanatory note – I got married after 7-8 months of “dating” stupid, stupid word. That doesn’t make me any different or more special/ deviant/ whatever rocks your boat from any other conventional human being. That makes me incredibly eager to move out of the rents’ and not get nagged at.) One’s life is full of next logical steps, no? I’m not entirely lambasting this. It could be a good thing for people too lazy or stupid to really think of what they truly desire out of their lives. It just irks me that these people choose to impose their laziness or stupidity on others.

I obviously have nothing very intelligent to say on such matters, so let us get back to the main point.

New Year’s Family Dinner@Saturday Menu for 23+ human beings. Including add-ons, thank you so much relevant people!

Spiced rice boiled in pineapple paste, cloves, ginger, garlic salt and tossed with pinenuts and peppers (recipe of own devising)
Angelhair pasta in green-peppers-and-mushroom tomato sauce with greens and fresh peppers (ditto)
Potato balls with tuna flake centers (adapted from Jocasta Innes’ recipes for potato latkes)
Chicken wings marinated in garlic-lemon sauce and black pepper sauce (separated, fool!) baked with onions (own devising)
Bok choy stir-fried with shiitake and oyster mushrooms in soy sauce (adapted from goddess Nigella)
Fish nuggets (generic store brand – to shut the kids up)
Homemade Onion “rings” (from Jocasta’s The Pauper’s Cookbook, thank you, Ms Innes)
Chicken and mutton Satay (hastily bought from coffee-shop one block away)
Apple and grape (sigh, YES, YES) crumble (tiredly: thank you, BBC)

Add-ons:
Roast Ham from god-knows-where (thanks, aunt! It er, sure looked juicy!)
Cousin’s mini vanilla cupcakes

Yes, a lot of food. But happily, achieved on a shoe-string budget and very little wastage (Darling and I ate the leftovers – not a lot – for lunch the next day). The ingredients capitalized on what I already had at home, and additional ones came up to a reasonable cost of $46.50 at the not-always-appropriately-named Shop-N-Save. The satay cost $20. A very reasonable bill for stuffing 23-24 people to near-bursting. I suspect the two carbo dishes played a large part.

Anyhow, success! The family loved the food and said so many times.

Forget whatever fucking stage I’m at – I always bind my soul to their acceptance and approval.

Happy New Year!

31 December 2007, 3.42am