My brother’s late-night dinner (Singapore)

Most Chinese kitchens worth their salt would have a stock of staple ingredients on standby at all times: onion, garlic, ginger, if not chilli as well.  In my childhood house, we practically always cooked more rice than the family could eat in one sitting, just in case someone needed a late-night snack.

My brother David was in the habit of coming home late, at 9.30pm or even 10pm.  This often meant that there would be no dinner left.  Step forward, the leftover rice!  One could easily whip up a simple fried rice using the onion/garlic/ ginger—and maybe a beaten egg, if there was one to spare.

There he’d sit in the kitchen, chomping away at this dish (see also blog entry Brotherly chivalry) with the delicious smell pervading the whole house, even travelling as far afield as the annexe where we children had our bedrooms.  

My second sister, who has the weakest will power in the family (and possibly in the world as well), would invariably emerge from the annexe, drawn to Dave’s fried rice as surely as a moth would to a candle.  It didn’t make any difference to her that she’d just had her dinner only a few hours before, and that this was his dinner.  

This was what happened:

The first time: 

Eve (sitting down by Dave, and craning her neck in the direction of the fried rice):  Ooh, Dave, that smells absolutely yummy. 

(Silence from Dave but for the chomp chomp chomp)

Eve:  Oh, Dave, do you think..., do you think... I could have a l-e-e-tle taste?

Dave makes the mistake of letting out a little grunt, perhaps more out of surprise than anything else that she should be wanting more food after the main dinner only four hours earlier.

Eve takes this as a “yes”, and before you can say Jack Robinson, she fetches a spoon and helps herself to a spoonful of it.

The second time:

Eve (spoon ready in hand this time, and sidling up to Dave):  "Ooh Dave, can you spare some of this?  It’s so delicious."

This time, she helps herself to more than one spoonful.

The third time:
The niceties are done away with, and she tucks in heartily.  Being the generous man that he is, my brother lets her wolf down at least half his dinner.

But there is only so much one can take, chivalry or not, when one’s dinner is constantly— and increasingly — invaded.  

The next time, when my brother saw her approaching, he made a big show — visually and audibly of spitting all over the fried rice: tui tui tui tui.  Result!  My sister froze in her tracks, looked absolutely horrified and disgusted, turned on her heel and went straight back to her bedroom.  My brother was left to finish his much-deserved late dinner in peace, at long last.  And over all subsequent sittings as well.

(Singapore, 1960s)