When you were a child, did you have toys that you play with to pretend that you were cooking? A toy stove or a toy refrigerator where there were toy fish, vegetables, meat, and you put them all into a toy pot and then dish them out onto the plates? Or use saga seeds as "red beans" for a bowl of dessert?
As I was growing up, I was fascinated by how my late mother was able to whip up very delicious dishes for our meals. I helped out regularly by slicing and cutting the ingredients and dishing them out of the wok when the fire was turned off.
As I am not very good with using an open-fire stove, the various electrical appliances I have in the kitchen now have been of a great help, like the microwave oven, the air-fryer, and the steamer to steam, boil, and fry most items. These appliances are relatively easy to use because they have knobs on them and I can control the functions like temperature, timing and cooking mode. My uncle pasted some marker stickers around the knobs so I could feel and turn the knobs for different timer and temperature indicators.
A few years ago, I had two misadventures in the kitchen. While heating up a bowl of porridge in the microwave oven, I turned up the timer for another few minutes as the porridge did not feel warm enough. Little did I know that the porridge was bubbling inside the container and the lid was not attached properly. When I took the container out of the microwave, the burning hot porridge splashed and scalded my fingers. Immediately, a few boils developed on my fingers and each was the size of a fishball! It took me one week before the boils subsided and another month for my fingers to recover. I decided I needed to modify my appliances and wear gloves when carrying hot items out of the appliances.
Another incident was my attempt to cook some frozen pork balls to go with macaroni. I ended up with food poisoning. It was during National Day and late at night, my brother had to bring me to a 24-hour clinic. The doctor gave me an injection which was supposed to stop the vomiting but it did not help. Very early the next day, my brother then brought me to the Accident & Emergency (A&E) department at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. When the nurses saw me coming out of the cab, they hoisted me onto the bed and put me on IV drip for the next four hours. By then, I was severely dehydrated. From then on, I make sure I cook my items for a longer time. Overcooking is safer than undercooking.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I have been working from home and would now prepare my meals in advance for each week. For instance, I would steam broccoli, mushrooms and carrots and separate them into batches. I do enjoy preparing the ingredients, from washing, peeling, cutting and slicing. I would put the boxes of vegetables into the refrigerator then take out a box each time to heat up and add in some prawns, sausages or pork balls, and make another dish of fish or egg and have them with my rice or noodles.
In the future, I would like to learn how to bake and other cooking techniques beyond steaming and air-frying. I hope I can learn to use induction stove and make more dishes.
Tan Siew Ling is fully Deafblind, having lost both her sight and hearing to a neurological condition, Neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2). She carries a screen reader with a Brialle display, which she fondly names it as "Bear Bear", everywhere she goes. Her humour, wordplay, and love of puns keep friends on toes. She enjoys reading books in her free time and loves to pen down her thoughts, often on a whim, which can be entertaining at times, on her social media. When she is not writing or reading, she can be seen doing insanely 72kg leg presses or swinging a 20kg kettlebell to and fro. You can find out more about Siew Ling and her journey here.