Yesterday, I left work early at 6.30pm to cook congee for dinner because it was still quiet with the summer lull, and the Boy was ill.

I stopped by the Chinese supermarket to pick up salted eggs and century eggs (I wanted to make our favourite pork and century egg congee), and then the regular supermarket to pick up the other ingredients (pork, ginger, spring onions, asparagus – I decided to innovate and add fibre and nutrients to the meal). While I was browsing the shelves and pottering along with my grocery shopping, I found myself feeling relaxed, thinking how therapeutic it was – this normalcy – and thinking that I could enjoy this. I’m trying this out, this grocery-shopping, meal-cooking, domestic-life, as I prepare to maybe be unemployed soon.

The Boy was already home and taking a nap, and so I prepared dinner while he slept – a very unusual state of affairs. The preparation went smoothly enough in main part: the washing, chopping, seasoning and marinating. I couldn’t find a bottle-opener to open my brand new bottle of sesame oil, but I didn’t want to wake the Boy to ask him if we had one and where it was kept. But once the cooking started proper, I encountered even more difficulties: How many cups of rice per person? (I woke the Boy up to ask him, even though I didn’t agree with his answer. Anyway the conclusion is: half cup per person) How long should I boil an egg to make sure it’s hard boiled? (I had to google this up. And these are the instructions I followed) And even though using a pressure cooker is supposed to speed up the cooking, I struggled to get the pressure cooker to work (the steam kept escaping) and I ended up taking one hour and a half to cook the congee. I was starving and downright cranky by the time the meal was ready.

I found it quite shocking, how poorly inept and poorly equipped I was to deal with the basic things in cooking and in life. Surely boiling an egg is among the easiest things to do? It’s depressing. Not sure I’m going to enjoy this aspect of domestic life. But I guess there’s a learning curve with cooking and other household logistics as well..