A Tiger in the Kitchen (14 page)

As Mike and I walked into the banquet hall, my father had arranged for dry ice to fog our pathway as the theme song from
Hawaii Five-0
blared. After the meal, when dancing began, I noticed that my father and his secondary school mates had disappeared, one by one. In fact, some of my male childhood friends were out of sight, too. I heard strange screams and yells coming from the conference room next door, the one my father had insisted the hotel wedding planner provide free of charge because “my daughter needs a place to change—come on.” I had thought it a strange request at the time, given that I had a room upstairs I could just as easily have used for quick changes. Once I followed the screams, however, all became clear. I opened the door to find the long conference table filled with playing cards. In the center was a large pool of money. And around this table were my father, his friends, my childhood friends, and a former editor of mine who had flown in from Tokyo—all of them drunk as sailors and louder than pirates. They were playing Polish (also known as In Between), a card game that my father’s friends and mine spend hours playing over the Chinese New Year holidays. We started playing the game as adolescents, choosing to see if we could double our lucky money from the New Year. Everyone gets two cards, and you bet against the pot of money on whether the third card you get will be between the numbers of the two cards you already have. If you are feeling lucky, you yell “polish!”, indicating that you think your cards are strong enough to polish off the whole pile of money.

My father had transformed my wedding into an illegal casino. Watching his friends and my friends, sharing cigarettes and slapping one another on the back and occasionally breaking out in the anthem of Saint Joseph’s Institution, the all-boys school most of them had attended, Mike and I smiled. This had somehow turned into the coolest wedding we’d ever been to—and it was our own!

Just then, the wife of one of my father’s schoolmates came over, feeling sorry for the bride. “This is what happens after you get married lah,” she said, sighing and shaking her head. “Boys will always be boys.” “Well,” I said immediately, “I certainly hope so.”

The only thing I feel sorry about when I think of our wedding is that when Mike had to buy his bride, the worst thing that he and his Singaporean groomsman, Eudon, had to do was down a large spoonful of wasabi (spicy) and immediately chase it with a pint of Guinness (bitter). What made me even more bitter was the fact that, as the bride, I was locked in a bedroom and unable to watch how green they got. So, when we found out that my dear cousin Valerie, my auntie Jane’s daughter, was getting married in Singapore, I knew we had to pull out all the stops. Valerie and I had played together often as children, after all—she was practically a sister to Daphne and me. In the years since I’d left Singapore, we had written each other regular letters and postcards to keep in touch. I knew that before we let her dashing French fiancé whisk her away into his family, we had to make him earn his bride.

As soon as morning broke on her wedding day, Valerie’s gaggle of bridesmaids—also known as hens or aunties—descended on her father’s apartment in the Pasir Ris neighborhood of Singapore, near the country’s East Coast. There was Gen, the chief hen, who supervised the proceedings with the calm cruise director air of a recent mother; Nat, the sophisticated traveler who spoke fluent French and had a weakness for Chanel; a second Gen, the effervescent journalist who spoke a mile a minute, a verbal force of nature; and my sister, Daphne, and me, representing the family. We’d not spent much time with Valerie’s friends before that day, but intimacy was of little importance. We were united in our crucial mission—to make the boys suffer.

We got to work as soon as we arrived, divvying up items we’d each purchased as Gen the Number One Hen gave out orders. For starters, we created a
suan
concoction of freshly squeezed lemon juice and dropped in preserved plums, which are generally so sour they induce wincing all on their own. For
ku,
we sliced up a big bitter gourd, whose name is pretty much self-explanatory. It’s widely regarded as the most bitter of vegetables. Next, we prepared a real
la
treat for the boys: white bread generously buttered with wasabi on one half and superspicy
sambal belacan
(a Singaporean shrimp-chili sauce) on the other and then folded over to form a sandwich. (Because we did feel slightly bad for the boys as we were preparing these, we decided to slice them up into finger sandwiches for easier consumption and sharing.)

Now, you might think that the “sweet” part would be a welcome respite. Not so in Chinese weddings, where bridesmaids never let up—unless the groom wants to fork over more money in bribes, of course. Although, all things considered, gobs of pancake syrup and honey stirred into soda probably weren’t too hard to down after wasabi sandwiches and bitter gourd.

Once all the dishes were prepared, we carefully set them out on the table and waited for the knocking.

A gleaming black car arrived; well-scrubbed young men in dark suits emerged. And soon enough, there was a rattling at the metal gate. Gen the journalist sprang into action, racing to the gate, immediately barking out demands for lucky money. Cramming ourselves around Gen and pressing our faces against the gate, we screamed, “At least three zeros!” knowing full well that most modern brides in Singapore command well below that. (When Mike bought me in 2004, he got away with forking over just $288, a lucky number since the word for the number eight sounds like “prosperity” in Mandarin and Cantonese.) After a short huddle, David, the groom, approached the gate, handing over a fat red packet—which was promising. Gen quickly opened it—it was filled with Vietnamese currency. More screaming, one more huddle, one more red packet—this one filled with Thai baht. We’d gotten many zeros all right, but not in the right currency.

After much back-and-forth, they finally produced a red packet that was somewhat satisfactory—a well-rounded $500—and the gate was opened.

Getting through the gate was only the first step, however. There was the battalion of humiliating tasks we’d dreamt up: making the groomsmen bend over and spell out “Valerie” using their butts; requiring David to sniff a bunch of perfumed cotton balls and identify the scent that his bride regularly used. And when all that was done, there was the tasting. The relief on David’s face rapidly disappeared as he spotted the trays of glasses and bowls containing mysterious liquids and solids that we’d carefully arranged on the dining table. He may have grown up in France, but after years of dating Valerie and attending numerous Singaporean weddings, he knew the drill. Rallying his groomsmen, David unflinchingly went through the bitter gourd, the honey and pancake syrup cocktail, the lemony sour plum drink, and even the wasabi-chili finger sandwiches as Valerie’s increasingly impressed elderly aunts looked on.

Having breezed through the four rounds of food, David thought he was done. Not so, however. Before he was allowed to open the bedroom door to claim his bride, he had one more hurdle—a particularly potent finale.

The hens had been having so much fun planning the menu that we didn’t want it to end. Weeks before, as we were discussing our plan of action, Daphne had visited a traditional Chinese medicine shop in Hong Kong—the kind that reeks so much of earth and fungus that you carry that smell in your hair for a long time after. My mother and grandmother adore these shops, often stopping in to pick up wizened bits and bobs to brew in Chinese soups and drinks; it was never clear what exactly was in these soups. They said only “Drink it—it’s good for you.” As a result, I’d generally avoided these shops as an adult, quickly walking by as soon as I caught a whiff of them in New York’s Chinatown.

This was a special occasion, however. And once Daphne had perused the stock and explained to the owner what she was doing, he immediately began plucking items out of jars with tweezers and carefully wrapping them in crisp white paper. The sight, when we unwrapped the packages, was unforgettable. Our treasure trove included starfish; dried sea horses; a long, dried, black object that was a dead ringer for a calcified horse dropping . . . and a package of salted bugs.

We boiled them all together in water for an hour, as per the medicine man’s instructions. When the soup was done and the pot was uncovered, the name of the concoction was obvious: smelly.

As we ladled the yellowish soup into shallow bowls, we made sure each dish came with a sea horse and a couple of bugs for garnish. And the look on David’s face when we unveiled the bowl was priceless. “No!”
“No!”
“You are kidding!” came the wails.

Unfortunately for these suddenly green groomsmen, we were most definitely not.

“It’s good for virility!” we volunteered. They, of course, looked skeptical. “It might even be good for sore throats!” we coaxed. (Which may not have been too far from the truth. These items are actually used in soups to cure sore throats—or enhance virility—the medicine man had said. At least this was what my sister gleaned with her limited grasp of Cantonese.)

When it became clear that we were not budging—except on the point of actually making them eat the sea horses and bugs—David rallied his men for the final push. Steeling themselves, one by one, they quickly downed the soup, letting out a chorus of giant
Ughs
at the end.

And then the groom’s battle was over—he had earned his prize. Stepping aside, the hens cleared a path. David strode to the bedroom door and opened it. Inside, Valerie sat, big-eyed and demure in a bright red cheongsam, her hair swept back and piled high on her head, looking every bit the lady in a Wong Kar-wai movie. (In fact, she had flown to Hong Kong to have her dress made at a tailor who had supposedly done work for
In the Mood for Love,
but that’s another story.) There was a hug, and a kiss. And a small bowl of soup was brought out—this one made with sweet dates, a blessing for the sugary life we all wished for them in the long years ahead. In the bowl were two
tangyuan
, plump, round balls made with glutinous rice flour—a symbol of their new family unit. David clutched the bowl and took a moment to gaze at his bride. The ever-impatient Valerie pouted and started pointing toward her mouth. Knowingly, patiently, David grabbed a spoon, scooping out one
tangyuan
and gently feeding his bride. The deal was complete.

The ritual of eating the sour, the sweet, the bitter, the spicy, and even the smelly had served its purpose. All those steps make the reward at the end all the more prized.

That day, there had been much laughter and merriment. (And only one groomsman had suffered a close encounter with the wasabi coming right back up.) I’d like to think that David, having faced a wall of bridesmaids and survived the food, burst through the bedroom door that day to claim his bride feeling triumphant and exhilarated. After the sour plums, the chili sandwiches, and the salted insect soup, perhaps, just perhaps, it was true that there was little out there they couldn’t face together.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Back in New York, I was starting to get cocky.

Barely off the plane, I once again threw myself into baking bread. The first big project—challah, which looked impossibly complicated, with its twisted braids and perfect honey coloring—terrified me. I was convinced that I’d never pull off braiding gooey logs of dough, and yet I did. Easily, too. When Brian, one of my best friends, who happens to be Jewish, proclaimed it “just beautiful” and rapidly devoured the half a loaf I’d given him, I almost teared up.

Heartened, I took a moment to reflect and admit to myself:
I am the bread-baking bomb.

And then I almost burned down my kitchen.

In the back of my mind, even as I had sailed through bagels, brioche, and challah, I’d known that one day it would come to this: me sitting on the floor of my smoke-filled apartment, staring at three rock-hard, blackened loaves and thinking,
I am a failure.

Having never baked bread before, I’d known it was a little insane to sign up for the weekly Bread Baker’s Apprentice challenge with bakers who had years of practice. But the successes had gone to my head. My breads were turning out well; the lessons my Singaporean aunties were sharing were giving me a confidence that I’d never had.

So when Simpson mentioned that there would be some Italian friends at his Fourth of July party, I thought it was a sign. The next bread on the challenge list was ciabatta—and who would be better at judging the quality of an Italian bread than Italians themselves?

Mike looked skeptical, but only briefly. And he most certainly didn’t say anything. After all, he generally likes to leave it up to me to get in the way of myself. Brief as it was, however, I’d seen his look of doubt. Never mind, I figured. I would show
him
as well.

It all began promisingly enough. On the first day, I prepared the
poolish,
a sponge that’s meant to give a bread more complexity of flavor. I took some bread flour and a bit of instant yeast, and mixed in some room-temperature water to create a watery dough. After that sat for a few hours at room temperature, I stuck it in the refrigerator to rest overnight so the flavors could deepen. I was feeling good about myself—I even envisioned Simpson’s Italian friends grabbing me, madly kissing me on both cheeks as they murmured “Brava! Brava!” A Singaporean gal acing ciabatta, who would have thought?