Sri Lanka

Last December, we packed our bags and ventured to Sri Lanka for holidays. The kids were excited and the excitement started from the flight - we flew on Emirates and the service was excellent. The kids were kept entertained with the big in-flight entertainment screen and did not catch a wink at all on the midnight flight.

We stayed a night (actually just for a couple of hours) in Colombo before we started our journey to Galle the next day. At Galle, we stayed at the beautiful Amangalla which is located in Galle Fort itself. That was simply an AMAZING experience. Old world charm which comes with the type of attentive butler service which leaves you feeling like a VIP and very well-pampered. The rooms were big and very tastefully decorated. I like the fact that there was no TV in the room at all. No kettle or cups. Need a nice cup of tea? Just ring for the butler!

Lying within the walls of Galle’s 17th century Dutch Fort – a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Amangalla offers a wonderful escape in the interesting and historic surroundings. Explore the Fort with its narrow streets, well preserved ramparts, the lighthouse, the Dutch Reform Church, and several houses with the typical manor house style architecture with columns, courtyards, and verandas. Surrounding Galle were Unawatuna and Hikkaduwa and many beautiful beaches. The sunset and the beach were simply unbelievable. You will not fail to marvel at God's creation as you indulge in the beauty of the sunset at the beach.

We also travelled to Tangalle and there, we stayed at the legendary Amanwella - a beautiful beach resort under the Aman Group as well. While staying there, we went one very early morning to the Yala National Park, which is home to the greatest variety of Sri Lanka’s wildlife. The holiday was just too short, after 3 wonderful nights at Amangalla and 3 nights at Amanwella, we have to head back to Colombo again to catch our flight back to Singapore. We stayed another night at the Hilton Residence Colombo before taking the afternoon flight back. The only thing we did in Colombo was shopping. Odel, Barefoot and Noritake (Japanese brand tableware) are the key shopping destination. Altogether, a very memorable first trip to Sri Lanka.

Cooking

I have never been a good cook. My first experience of cooking was really cooking instant noodles. But even that, I have come to realise, is not simply dumping the noodle into the water. Its all about timing. Overcooking it makes the noodles soggy and on the edge of tasting disgusting. Undercooking it, on the other hand, makes it feel like you are eating plastic or rubberband.

The first time I cooked for friends was a simple dish of fried beehoon (chinese rice noodles). That was in my university days and I was cooking for my hostel mates. Todate they still remember that very well. Not because it was tasty, on the contrary, it was so blend and tasteless that it marked my memory of my culinary capabilities in their very long term memory. Two decades down the road when we talked about cooking, they can still 'fondly' remember my attempt in whipping up a storm for them in the pathetic pantry kitchen in the hostel.

As my mother is a great cook, therefore the kitchen is her teritory and I had never had the opportunity to cook for the family when I was staying with the family. It was not until I was married and we were staying on our own that I had to start cooking. For a long time, before we had kids, there was always the excuse that it was difficult to cook for two. Hence we were eating out for dinner most of the time. Else there was always our parent's homes which we could go back to for a delicious home cooked meals. Eating out often proved to be too detrimental on the waistline. With the expanding waistline, we thought it would be a good idea to at least eat healthily at home at least 2-3 times a week.

I must admit it took a while to mastering the art of cooking small quantity. Estimation did not come easy and I was always cooking too much initially. I was taught from young by mom that it is not good to keep food overnight, coupled with the fact that being Asian, we believed it is bad to throw away food. Hence we often ended up having to stuff our face to finish off what we have cooked. We had most fun with cooking curry - creating our own curry paste which was super hot. It was nice eating that at night in an air-conditioned room. With just plain rice and a big pot of curry, we would eat and 'cry' at the same time, our lips and tongue feeling numb at the end of the meal.

We then started experimenting with western cooking and my husband found his love for baking. I, on the other hand, always had a preference for savoury food and prefer to experiment with western soup, pasta etc. My favourite was the art of assembly - salad was my forte. I learnt that as long as I have some kind of cheese, some kind of crunchy food like nuts or hardy vegetables, a good dressing, the salad can hardly go wrong. From sunflower seeds, walnits, almonds to pumpkin seeds, I tried them all. I also found my love for Japanese dressing. Todate when I travel to Japan, I am always looking for interesting Japanese dressing which I cant find back home.

Though still not a good cook, I must humbly said I have come a long way since the university days. I am more experimental now and love trying out new recipes and cuisines such as Thai, Indian, Spanish, Italian.

However I still have a thing about cooking without a recipe. That explains why I love to watch Chef At Home (Chef Michael Smith) who is always advocating cooking without a recipe and just going with your intuition.