My father had perfected his art of making sock Kopi over the past few years. His temperature and proportion of Kopi, Ideal Milk and sugar is just right. In fact you can challenge him to do Siu Dai or Kao and he would be able to do them.
He gets his coffee grinds from Choon Seng Coffee Shop back in Sibu. The coffee shop is so famous that the Prime Minister of Malaysia had coffee there when he visited our little hometown.
Both my mom and himself will have a cup of home brewed Kopi for afternoon tea every day. I heard they've converted my 4th Aunty and also my cousins to drink coffee. And when I visit them, I'd surely order at least one cup a day.
Here's my dad prepping dinner in the outdoor kitchen. The outdoor kitchen used to be so badly plagued with mosquitoes that everyone who cooked there would eventually do the mosquito dance, there they wiggle their legs to get rid of preying mosquitoes while chopping or frying food.
After moving back to Sibu my dad cleared up the backyard and the mosquito invasion is no more. This is evident as you can see he's brave enough to be topless.
Outdoor kitchens always made sense to me. All the oiliness and smell from frying gets blown away by the wind to the backyard. There's no need to mop the kitchen after cooking oily food. Too bad we can't do that here with Singapore's HDBs.
This is how a casual lunch looks like when the family gets together. Dinners generally involve so many dishes that they can hardly fit on the Lazy Susan.
My mom remarked that the family seems to be running a restaurant whenever we get together and I can attest to that. My mom, my aunt and my dad only gets a few hours a day when they're not prepping or cooking.
Food is nutrition. It is also one way of showing affection, appreciation, pride and togetherness in our family.
