I’m in need of a mug of hot chocolate today.
It has been a tiring week, emotionally and mentally draining. Sometimes you just want to wind down, you feel the need to step back because life just seems to be moving so fast, seems to overwhelm you. It has been one of those days for me. I’m writing this at the end of the working week, and it is absolutely pouring outside. Winter is coming on fast and the clouds out there have cast their gloomy shadow in my room.
I made myself a mug of chocolate earlier. Where I come from, I’ve only ever known Milo. Where I am now, Milo is found only on World Food shelves in my local supermarket or in Chinatown. Strange. I thought Nestlé and chocolate were universal… Of course I now know more brands of chocolate that are out there, but I’d like to be fussy for a change. Sometimes it helps to go with what you know, what you’re familiar with.
When I was about ten, my parents went on holiday with my brother, leaving my sister and me in the care of my aunt. My aunt is cool, she still is. She loves cooking for people, and nothing is too much trouble for her when it comes to feeding the brood. When we were kids, the extended family used to congregate at her house for weekend dinner. Sometimes we went unannounced, but it didn’t matter to my aunt. She always made sure there was enough food to go round. Anyway, the prospect of staying over for a week was like a mini-holiday for us. We were allowed to stay up, watch tv, play with toys and pretty much did whatever we wanted. She made rice dumplings for us, and every night before we went to bed, she’d always make sure that we had a cup of iced Milo. For me, that was the high point of my stay there.
My aunt would chill the drink in a big stainless steel teapot and when it was cold enough, she’d call for us from the kitchen and we’d go running because we knew what was coming. We’d stand there in front of the freezer waiting expectantly with our mugs – my cousin, my sister and I – like Oliver Twist asking for more, except that we hadn’t even had some yet, but we also knew there was always more if we wanted it. Not that we were spoilt – we were polite kids I think – but this was my aunt’s brand of generosity, the way that she showed she cared.
And now I’m older. My aunt has moved out of her house. We don’t go there every weekend anymore. Chocolate drinks as I know it have become watered down. Life has become more complicated. I can pick my coffee beans from 10 different varieties. I can choose ground beans or grind it myself. I can choose to have tea in different combinations: rose and peppermint, earl gray and elderflower… That’s great. That’s absolutely super. But sometimes I just want to keep it simple. Sometimes I just need to reconnect with my old self to find myself. Because when we are surrounded with so many choices we can get caught up with it all and lose sense of who we are. All these new choices don’t have a piece of me in it. Research has indicated that our sense of smell has the strongest imprint in our memory bank. And being able to smell, and taste, something from my past that evokes such memories helps me slow down, and for a brief moment, helps me rediscover myself.
“Feasting is also closely related to memory. We eat certain things in a particular way in order to remember who we are…”
Jeff Smith 'The Frugal Gourmet Keeps the Feast'
It has been a tiring week, emotionally and mentally draining. Sometimes you just want to wind down, you feel the need to step back because life just seems to be moving so fast, seems to overwhelm you. It has been one of those days for me. I’m writing this at the end of the working week, and it is absolutely pouring outside. Winter is coming on fast and the clouds out there have cast their gloomy shadow in my room.
I made myself a mug of chocolate earlier. Where I come from, I’ve only ever known Milo. Where I am now, Milo is found only on World Food shelves in my local supermarket or in Chinatown. Strange. I thought Nestlé and chocolate were universal… Of course I now know more brands of chocolate that are out there, but I’d like to be fussy for a change. Sometimes it helps to go with what you know, what you’re familiar with.
When I was about ten, my parents went on holiday with my brother, leaving my sister and me in the care of my aunt. My aunt is cool, she still is. She loves cooking for people, and nothing is too much trouble for her when it comes to feeding the brood. When we were kids, the extended family used to congregate at her house for weekend dinner. Sometimes we went unannounced, but it didn’t matter to my aunt. She always made sure there was enough food to go round. Anyway, the prospect of staying over for a week was like a mini-holiday for us. We were allowed to stay up, watch tv, play with toys and pretty much did whatever we wanted. She made rice dumplings for us, and every night before we went to bed, she’d always make sure that we had a cup of iced Milo. For me, that was the high point of my stay there.
My aunt would chill the drink in a big stainless steel teapot and when it was cold enough, she’d call for us from the kitchen and we’d go running because we knew what was coming. We’d stand there in front of the freezer waiting expectantly with our mugs – my cousin, my sister and I – like Oliver Twist asking for more, except that we hadn’t even had some yet, but we also knew there was always more if we wanted it. Not that we were spoilt – we were polite kids I think – but this was my aunt’s brand of generosity, the way that she showed she cared.
And now I’m older. My aunt has moved out of her house. We don’t go there every weekend anymore. Chocolate drinks as I know it have become watered down. Life has become more complicated. I can pick my coffee beans from 10 different varieties. I can choose ground beans or grind it myself. I can choose to have tea in different combinations: rose and peppermint, earl gray and elderflower… That’s great. That’s absolutely super. But sometimes I just want to keep it simple. Sometimes I just need to reconnect with my old self to find myself. Because when we are surrounded with so many choices we can get caught up with it all and lose sense of who we are. All these new choices don’t have a piece of me in it. Research has indicated that our sense of smell has the strongest imprint in our memory bank. And being able to smell, and taste, something from my past that evokes such memories helps me slow down, and for a brief moment, helps me rediscover myself.
“Feasting is also closely related to memory. We eat certain things in a particular way in order to remember who we are…”
Jeff Smith 'The Frugal Gourmet Keeps the Feast'
I think I’m going to have another mug of Milo…
