Since
cooking my first nasi lemak back in my university days, I have perfected my
nasi lemak to my own taste. Over the years, even though I haven't done it very
often, I’ve cooked nasi lemak for friends (in university) and family (maybe a
couple of times as I also love my mom’s nasi lemak). I have more or less
perfected my technique and the ingredients that I use. I can now rustle up a
delicious mouthwatering meal in 45 minutes.
When I
first arrived in Den Haag, I didn’t know that many people here. My circle of
friends consisted of my lovely wife and a couple of her friends who I met
before on previous trips. So I had to make new friends. I decided I should try
and extend the hand of friendship to the Malaysian community first as we probably had more things in
common. I just had to figure out how to go about doing that.
One of the
generalizations that I can make about Malaysians is that they will never say no
to food. Under most circumstances, when you invite a Malaysian over to your
house for any kind of food, you will get a positive response. Of course there
are those who would decline because they can’t squirm their way out of a
previous engagement, but if you ever invite a Malaysian to your house for a
meal, be prepared to receive a “Yes” answer and in most cases, prepare a lot of
food. We Malaysians, can really eat!
Based on
this, I decided the best way to make friends here, especially among the
Malaysian community is to invite them over for a meal of my nasi
lemak. We decided on a small group, just five of us including my wife and I. It
had been a while since I cooked anything (privileges of living with your mom
for a few years). So I didn’t want to invite a large group just in case my nasi
lemak didn’t turn out as I expected. These were to be my guinea pigs.
Needless to
say, my nasi lemak was a hit. I’ve cooked it a few times since and everyone in
Den Haag who has had a plate would always have seconds. Nowadays, whenever I
decide to have nasi lemak party, guests rarely decline whenever they receive an invite.
P.s. Big thank you to the guinea pigs, my wife
Zaiton Abdullah, and friends Samantha Lee, Zulfa Ashida Zulkifle, Johan Mokhtar
and Azrina Kamaruddin
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