Some Spies Stir Better

Today's mood:

I dreamed about kaya last night, or maybe it was this morning, since I went to bed really late. Kaya is a Malaysian/Singaporean jam made from coconut and eggs. It's sticky sweet and you can spread it on bread/toast, cupcakes and pastries. I haven't had it in a long time, mainly because the store varieties in cans taste terrible.

My mom taught me how to make kaya. It involved a lot of stirring while it thickened in the pot, as it changed color from whitish-egg to caramel-brown. If one became lazy and didn't stir enough, the mixture burned at the bottom and tasted odd.

I was the only one in my household given this task of "stirring the kaya." According to my mother, I'm the only one who could do it because I was the only baby whose head she "shaved." Yup. You heard right. That was what she said. A Chinese baby whose head got shaved before her first birthday could do certain things in the kitchen that non-shaved babies couldn't. Like stirring kaya, for instance. If, let's say, my sister, who apparently, had such beautiful thick locks that my mother couldn't bear to shave, stirred the concoction, it would turn lumpy. And it always turned a yucky green-brown color.

I have tested this "theory" several times when I was a teen. Sure enough, none of my siblings, unshaven heathens that they were, could produce smooth and silky kaya like moi. Of course, as my brain cells got a bit smarter, there was this sneaky suspicion that it was partly diligence on my part and nothing to do with shaved babyhood ;-), the ultimate ability in my genetic code to sit and read a book and stir and stir and stir. I don't think any of my sisters sat there by the pot for hours like I did.

It's almost impossible to describe kaya to the uninitiated. All I can say is that, like writing and its tendency to get writers to drink coffee and eat chocolate, it isn't exactly health food. It's sweet and addictive (to me). I remember spending hours dipping my fingers into warm kaya and eating it just like that while reading a book (usually romance). Hmmmmm. Steve Morgan tore off Ginny's dress and...hmm...more kaya....

But I digress. I was saying I dreamed of kaya, which was very significant, since I had spent most of Sunday night trying to get my revisions done. I had been literally stirring and stirring my pot of words, hoping to get the smooth and silky consistency. Just like kaya, revisions take a lot of patience. And if it's not done properly, it can turn out lumpy.

I'm trying to be patient like I've never been before in this revision stage. I keep stirring and it's still not done, something that has never happened before in any of the other books. So much more left to do! Now I have to go to the laptop and punch in the corrections and additions. I keep telling myself that it'll all be good at the end, no lumps, no lumps....but man, I need to get this done so I can get my Book 2 synopsis done!

Argh. Hence the picture of "being buried to the neck." Oh, to have the time to make some real kaya of my own ;-). The recipes online, by the way, aren't complete. They are missing the very essential pandan leaf.

Back to my lumpy commandos....

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