Best of 2009 #12
December 12 New food. You’re now in love with Lebanese food and you didn’t even know what it was in January of this year.
I don’t know what it says about me that there isn’t really any kind of food that I’ve tried this year that I hadn’t eaten before. I’m not that boring, I promise! I’ve just been around a bit! When I think about it, the diet that I eat is so wide and varied compared to my grandparents. As much as I love and adore them – they think pasta is exotic.
The only new thing I’ve tried this year has been the occasional sweet from Dexie’s FDCarers. However, yesterday when I got there, the FDC Mum had cooked some prawn crackers. These weren’t the kind you get from Chinese restaurants, they were huge and a pale beige. She handed two different crackers to me with an impish grin.
“Taste them,” she implored. “Tell me which one you like better!”
One was denser with a pink rim, saltier and harder. The other was puffy and sweet. She told me that the latter was from Indonesia and the former was from Brunei, which is where her husband is from – she is from Taiwan. I agreed that the one from Brunei tasted better – her husband said that the quality of the prawns used was higher.
I have no understanding of what it must be like to pack up everything and leave for a foreign country. So far I’ve lived in one state, five different houses, in two suburbs and one country town. The FDC Dad used to be an engineer in his home country, but his qualifications are not accepted here so he delivers pamphlets and does some work in the city. Presumably something at an engineering firm. They are very proud of their children – their daughter has a daughter who is doted on, lives locally and she is a GP. Their son is an engineer who lives with his wife in Malaysia.
Imagine swapping the busy city life of Taipei or Bandar Seri Begawan for suburban Adelaide. Where koalas might clamber across your front lawn on a hot day or you might find a blue tongue lizard on your back step.
From this…
to this
