Mama's Beef Bolognese Spaghettini; Delicious

Who's going home tomorrow?! I'M going home tomorrow!!

The lovely unpolluted-cause-there-isn't-enough-industry-going-on-the-country Brunei skies are calling me! My bed is ready to be slept in (I lie actually, I no longer have my own bed, so what I mean is my sister's bed is ready to be slept in), my brother is ready to be cuddled (I lie again, in hopeful vain, because the monkey doesn't like being kissed and hugged anymore; what is up with that? It's not cooties if it's from your sister) and my little sister is ready to spill to me all her deep dark 16 year old angsty secrets, which I shall then divulge to my other sisters and my mother, because we know best, and really 16 is a cuh-razy hormone-fuelled age and experimenting is bad and testing your boundaries is unnecessary, because I can tell you exactly where your boundaries are by telling you not to do anything naughty.

And if those things AREN'T ready, they have approximately half a day to GET ready, because that is what I'm coming home for!

Along with home cooking, which I have missed dearly. My old maid used to make the best spaghetti bolognese. (See relevant photo below of sample spagbol). And my mom makes the best mee cina becak. Which sounds racist, but nobody knows what else it's supposed to be called so I think that gives us a pass. And my aunt makes the best tiramisu. And my grandmother's maids make the best tempeh goreng ever. And we always have feta cheese and olives in the house, which I try to replicate in my own home, but it's not the same eating feta cheese and olives at midnight without gossip and sisters.

I seem to be getting homesick, so it is a good thing I'm GOING HOME TOMORROW!

Spicy Prawn Olio Spaghetti; Bianco

You know that feeling when you're pressured into eating something you don't really want to eat but then feel compelled to not only pile on copious amounts of whatever you are eating but also lick the plate clean upon finishing? Usually occurs when grannies, elderly makcik auntie types and temperamental chefs, all of whom cook the food in question, are around?



Yeah that's sort of what I felt when I ate this pasta. I actually wanted to try their kung pao chicken pasta which was the special for the month, but when I ordered it, the waitress was like, "Really? Really you want to try that? The chicken? Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?" like I was submitting a Final Answer to the Million Dollar question on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire or I was about to read out my "I Do" vow in a wedding to a mass murderer who would surely kill me on my honeymoon or I was about to sign my soul away to the devil or something.

So I got understandably freaked out by her creepy questions and in my state of freaked-out-ness somehow ordered the dish that she recommended in lieu of the kung pao chicken. And then because she recommended it and kept coming over to check if I liked it and how fast I was eating it, I felt pressured to scarf the whole thing down although I felt fairly ambiguous towards it.

Which really brings to head a couple of key issues:
a) the trick to getting me to do something is to confuse me and make me doubt myself. Definitively ordering me to do something will not work, and if she had ordered me to order the spicy prawn olio pasta I would have been like NO who do you think you ARE, my MOTHER?! (though not even my mother orders me around precisely because she is aware of the trick that I am in the midst of revealing)
b) did the kung pao chicken really taste that bad or did she just want it for herself?

Makes you wonder, right?