this isn't your run of the mill 'what would your last meal be' foodie question.

i'm asking you, what would be the very last thing you'd choose to eat in SINGAPORE, if say, you were asked to leave this country forever but still be able to travel all over the rest of the world.

i'm asking this because i realized how my list of things to do with bea before she leaves basically consists of 'what to eat' - in a sense it's 'doing' because we have to get to the place and eating is a doing thing, but essentially ... ok, we're just eating, whatever. we're shameless ikea fans, it was a common ritual of ours back in njc. cut class if our schedules didn't fit, take 961 down to ikea - we'd both have swedish meatballs and chicken wings. occasionally, softserve vanilla ice cream.

but i know if we had to choose the very last meal we could ever have here, it definitely wouldn't be italian or swedish. i mean the question lets me travel to italy and sweden (technically).

so i asked ed. and she said newton oyster omelette. i said katong laksa.

but truly, now that i think about it? probably river valley nasi padang. i don't know how i started eating curries. i don't even know how i started liking malay food because my brothers still don't after all these years. when it comes to food, i'm malay at heart. one of my favourite holidays is hari raya because malay friends send us all sorts of malay food. ketupat, sayur lordei, rendang - it's awesome. you don't even have to ask how i got like this. it's my dad. it's in the blood, man. i like this story. he claims he got it from his acs hockey days. most of my dad's best friends (to this very day) are indians. on the hockey team, most of his team-mates were indians. after training, they'd go to the nearby hawker centre to have curry together. why they picked malay style curry rather than indian curry? i don't know either. but there's just something about food rituals. whenever you eat something that has good memories strung on to it, you just feel good. i guess that's why my dad loves malay food and this somehow influenced my tastes. some of my fondest memories back when we went out regularly on sundays together consisted of (instead of buy back food like we do now) going to maxwell market, driving all the way to geylang for ipoh horfun, going to lavender market, going to balestier ... basically going to special places for special food.

food brings people together. food is magic. i mean just how does it have the ability to taste and smell so good when you mix it all up or put it on the stove?

it's sad. i don't really want to think about not ever being able to eat here again. the last week before i leave, i'll probably be frantically trying to eat singapore. and when i'm not eating, i'll be buying foodpastes, canned goods and collecting recipes to make sure i can continue eating singapore even while i'm in chicago. i'm gonna miss the lychees and the durians. my brother made this comment about how he hated tropical fruit and wished we had sweeter strawberries and raspberries. but i say, who cares about those when you can have champudat cupcakes? (my mom's got a recipe. they're mind-numbingly good.)

and then, there's sweetcorn and yam ice cream which clearly owns ben+jerrys. obviously.

so, i'm curious. to anyone who's reading - what would be the very last thing you'd eat here? i think it really says a lot about you and it's bound to make you think and remember a whole lot of stuff.

+ posted by M @ 11:52 PM