Not a good start, but not a bad ending….

It started off as one of those days. You know the kind of day where you wake up and feel like you've just been run over by a steam roller. That was how my Saturday started. I woke up quite early, around 7.00 and the moment I sat up I felt like I had been crushed by a huge rolling pin. All my muscles were aching and crying out to me to just lie down again.

I don’t know how to describe how I felt in English (I guess lethargy would be a close enough description) but in Malay I would call it as “lemau” (If I was referring to food, I think “lemau” would translate as “stale”). After a brief tinkle, I decided that my running shoes could wait another day and my rowing machine wasn't going to go anywhere, I went back to bed.

Waking up again at 10.00 was slightly better. I could no longer hear screaming coming from my muscles, just some faint whispering  For a brief second, I contemplated either putting on my running shoes and head out in 0 degrees temperature or spend 15 minutes breathing heavily on my rowing machine. Instead I did neither.

After another brief tinkle, my wife informed me that Siti had cooked nasi lemak that morning and had invited us over. All of a sudden, all my aches vanished. The thought of having nasi lemak for brunch sounded like a brilliant idea (I honestly didn't know that the invitation was actually for breakfast).

The nasi lemak was excellent. The hotness of the sambal was more prominent compared to mine but the sweetness and the sourness helped to temper it down a bit. The rice was nicely cooked and I noticed that there were chunks of rice from the bottom of the pot in the rice bowl (in Malay we call this the “kerak”). I love these chunks of rice from the bottom of the pot. I didn't notice them that much in my first serving. I only realized they were in the rice bowl about half way through my second serving, so naturally, I just had to have a third helping.

The sambal, eggs, cucumber and fried anchovies making up the whole nasi lemak combination.

I would normally stop there. Three servings of nasi lemak is a lot to have in one sitting (although I think my record was 5), but I spent yesterday afternoon experimenting with this recipe for chocolate mousse on a baked cornflakes crust. I couldn't find a recipe for chocolate mousse on a baked crust so I had to combine 2 different recipes. And I was very eager to taste it. It was wonderful. The crust was a bit crunchier than I expected making it very difficult to cut, but the mousse was perfect and the whole combination of mousse and crust worked very well. Next time I will have to find a way to reduce the crunchiness of the crust.

The Chocolate Mousse on Baked Cornflakes Crust
(You need to zoom in to see the crust)

After the start I had this morning, I didn't really think that I’d feel much better in the afternoon. When I start any day feeling “lemau”, it usually ends the same way. Not much that happens during the day that would improve my overall outlook for the day, but today, was different. Thanks to the nasi lemak from Siti