EAT, LOVE, PLAY
T oy-store owners. If children could choose a career for their parents, a high percentage would certainly set their fantasies on mom and pop being toystore owners, and dad nearly resembling Santa Claus. It’s the winning card in parent boasting. Statisticians, epidemiologists, chief execs, step aside. If dad has a jangling set of keys to unlock shelves of fluffy joy, castles, hotrods and hours of fun, he might as well be the Saint Peter of the playground crowd.
My dad didn’t own a toy store. But he did rank up there with pilot, fireman, and Jacques Cousteau. He was a chef — one with real business savvy, too. Avoiding the staff issues and high costs of running a restaurant, his takeaway shop plugged into a busy shopping centre and had a till that rang like a Vegas casino.
Money didn’t give me lofty jungle-gym status; what did was the fact that for lunch I could have anything from that shop. And “anything” meant slap chips loaded with salt, vinegar and tomato sauce; battered and deep-fried chicken; sweet-and-sour noodles; and thick spring rolls, the oilier and crunchier the better.
In the humdrum lunchtime world of dry sandwiches, a drenched bag of slap chips and a couple of Cokes was high-value currency. How much this influenced friendships or the affections of giggly groupies, in spite of my knock-kneed awkwardness, I’ll never know. All I do know is that a dad’s career choice can help make you more popular than chocolate milk.
For hours after school, I watched my father labour away in his shop. Beads of sweat rolled down his brow as he took charge in the heat of the kitchen, doing the actual cooking or barking orders to the frantic staff.
For me, the picture of him in his dirty apron, wielding a spatula and sucking on a Berkeley cigarette — he was a chain smoker — symbolises what it is to be a hardworking family provider.
Open affection in our home was typical of the Asian family — minimal. But while love wasn’t demonstrated with hugs, my father revealed his devotion in another language: he cooked. He did what he knew best to look after us. At the dinner table, love was ladled and heaped high, and my dad enjoyed the rewards of seeing the family banter, laugh, and — most of all — eat.
Parenting hardly gets more rewarding than when the kids show their appreciation of your baked beans on toast cuisine with a messy face. This became clear when I became a dad myself. It’s what my father knew.
We do not own shares in Mattel or Lego. And our kids will not be able to boast privileged access to Hamleys or FAO Schwarz. But what they can have is our cooking; be it a bowl of pap, or bowls of encouragement, time and attention, or my baked beans on toast, possibly slightly burnt.
I’m no chef like my dad, but I don’t have to be. Made with enough care, seasoned with commitment, even the simplest meal can offer the taste of devotion.