mijn paleis

Just like the roaches that lurk in the crevices and cupboards of our homes that have survived millions of years before - and after - the dinosaurs extinct, so has Corningware - from the 70's to this day, the white multipurpose cookware still serves as a staple in every household. *Pardon the lame comparison; but I can still kick some sense that a dish ware is no where worthy of being compared to a bunch of dirty creepy crawlies!*

If it isn't passed down to a daughter from a mother, Corningware must have entered your lives in some kind of form. Like in my case, the first set ever bestowed upon me was in a wedding present box, five years ago. It was a limited edition 4-piece, named Callaway, with the sides of the bowls adorned with patterns of green leaves on vines. Some of us may have not seen this rare design, for it dates quite back to the dinosaur realm of the Corningware species. In some instances, a particular design may last umpteen years, so no wonder if some of us know it. I only got acquainted with Callaway when the husband and I started a kitchen in our own little establishment called home. Then on, the non-exhaustive list of my wifely duties aka self-proclaimed chef simmered away with sidekick Corningware by my side.




To me, my Corningware serves as tangible proof that the endless purpose of this piece of cook ware is a testament to the foresight of its accidental innovators. Yup, ironic as this may sound, but Corningware is a lab catastrophe gone hot collectible - in the 70's, a chemist dropped a 900-degree-Celsius heat resistant white glass and it didn't break. The rest is history.

Before Callaway served a major duty in my kitchen, I only collected IKEA-style dining and cutlery sets; cookware collection was my only notion of typical Asian women must-haves and I strictly wanted to stay clear of it. However deep in denial I might’ve been, the DNA of Corningware is woven into the fabric of my life via upbringing and inevitable in-laws influences.

Leave Brangelina and the number of children they keep artificially adding - aside - for I personally felt that after five years, the time was ripe for me, like other women too - to add to the number of my own cookware collection. Callaway needed siblings to play with. One of my many evil schemes while on a family vacation in Langkawi was to hover over as many department stores with billboards that scream Corelle, Visions or Corningware. The main aim was to score the best Corningware deal offered. Nobody leaves Langkawi empty-handed. Besides, it’s a duty-free island, you can get more with less, and no expensive in vitro process involved!

To my surprise, on the flight to Langkawi – first time on a budget airline - the uncommon fact worthy of attention is that 'low cost airline' and 'low civic' are separated by a mere mathematical fraction when you find that an uncivilized idiotic passenger's chewed gum is glued to the sole of your shoe and without you realizing it, later ends up on your sling bag and t-shirt. Plus, you suddenly find yourself reduced to joining the intolerably mad shovel through the free-seating local airline all for the sake of securing everyone’s desired seat – by the window. I was then cured from all these madness after rounds of scouting for the best package of a Corningware set. I finally conquered my own anxiety of paying an astronomical amount of the husband’s money to get my European Herbs triplets!

A month into putting my favourite type of collectible to multi use (one that can be taken straight out of a refrigerator and onto the stove), my brand new 10-year warranty, 5-litre jumbo Europen Herbs pot cracked in two during its maiden service!

I was silent through washing the now literally two-piece pot - minus the lid – hurt beyond anything, emotional and physical alike – cut my thumb with the sharp edge of the crack along the way. And thinking this wasn’t the kind of beginning – or ending – I had looked for.

I have reluctantly made peace with the fact that five-year-old Callaway has better longevity than one-month-old baby European Herbs. By now I’m sure you’ve got my point on the uncanny roaches versus dinosaurs’ theory. There’s no providential recovery to my remorse over the tragic Europen Herbs mishap.

I keep my hopes afloat that I can redeem my 10-year-warranty replacement for my short-lived bliss some day. Now, where’s that shopping receipt. Langkawi, anyone?

I dig the Silky Hope + Brave commercial on tv with Sh Amani and Mawi in it. Mawi has a funny bone when he simply says 'Yes, I the brave types'... incorrect nonsensical english. Tapi bab mengenangkan Mawi tu kelakar, dengar dia sebut dialog dia dalam iklan tu memang mencuit hati, terus lupa yang bende dia sebut tu tunggang langgang bahasanya. Tak tahu lah Mawi tahu tak ayat yang betul di sebalik dialog yang diberi padanya, atau yang keluar kat iklan tu memang Mawi yang spontan? Couldn't tell. But one thing I'm sure about is, I do enjoy the commercial very much. Tengok banyak kali pun tak bosan. My england pun bukannya powderful, however, one thing that's worrying is that Mawi has such a strong effect on young children, and I wonder if they'll pick up his english 'aura' too and end up saying the wrongly-syntaxed sentences all the way through to their working days instead. Being children, and with our community yang kadang-kadang grew up scoring a weak C or even flunked the english paper yang dianggap tak penting sebab ia 'bahasa penjajah', serta malas nak perbetulkan ajukan anak-anak masing-masing sebab nak layan kelakar idola hiburan itu, atau mak-mak bapak-bapak depa pun ingat ayat2 dalam iklan tu betul? Tak leh nak komen lah, I might end up picking a fight here :p There goes our nation. Hope not. Hmm... janji 'world'. Apa kata cikgu cikgi english kita? Whatever it is, right or wrong, Mawi's a millionaire by means of his career in the entertainment industry and product endorsements like Silky and such. All the best to him.

Paleis van Rina is in Dutch, when translated to English simply means Rina's Palace.

Why palace? Why in Dutch? Follow the reasons in my next few entries...

It's been almost 2 weeks I've pinned on this new badge on my new hat - a home-stay mom. Hence this online babble space.

It never crossed my mind, and I thought not in a million years that I'd quit my day job to permanently submit to the around-the clock of motherly duties and the kids' demands, the forever-piling up laundry, cook a limited palette of dishes for the husband, and run all other household errands; at 30!

11 months ago I was stoked with a handsome offer of a managerial positon in some locally-owned oil drilling technology company, to do IT, implementing the SAP software as one of the company's 'realizing potential' and 'business transformation' goal of being recognized globally. Bye bye lame job, hello excitement (plus super-tight deadlines and the husband's silent treatment if I came home from work slighty off the time limit allowed). This was the opportunity to acquire more knowledge, to be at my best and make my existence in the SAP world much more significant. At this time I had already foreseen myself some time in my 40's, still behind a business laptop, probably by that time, with a secured and more fulfilling position, saddled with a few years of SAP implementation/enhancement project experience; or in a worst case, be a 5-figure salaried walking-dead boss turning up at work barely on time and leave the minute the punch-card clock sings its 'go home' ringtone. If lucky, I could even be working from home.

But no. After all that corporate climbing, I plunge myself all the way down - at 30, I'm a housewife. I have to turn up to wok, instead.

Now I sit on the same boat as those 20, 30 year-old domestic gender, whom I used to speculate that they devote themselves to household affairs due to society influences and little enthusiasm to empower themselves with knowledge and tougher responsibilities in the worlds outside their own orbits. Another is that they're married to wealthy or more-than-sufficiently-funded men who can afford their wives to be on the shelves after their marriage vows take place, then produce a few heirs. Now that's a remarkably big catch you've got there, woman. Or not.

Sceptical me.

May be I'm not doing justice to this demographic group of people. May be it's because I've not seen my own mother hatting kitchen duties full time, at least until she opted for an early retirement at 52, due a small finger accident that that took a year to recover (she has osteoarthritis). Soon after, she earnestly deepened her passion for baking and is now selling cakes from home, apart from marketing health supplements and skin care products (still awfully young-looking despite twenty-over years of staff nursing shift job). Not that my father couldn't afford governing the household expenses with his own income, sometimes every woman should not just completely submerge herself in the household title, but to do what her heart desires, or at some achievement point, buy her own diamons with her own earned dough. My mother did.

But then again, we all have our choices to make. Career woman, or home-stay mom. It's been mutually decided between the husband and me that I join the latter group - neither because I'm lazy nor my husband's a rich guy; but my exodus is based on a justifiable reason. With that, I'm now honing my handcraft skills at designing wedding gifts and making my own small pocket change; or help my mother sell her cakes. Not to blow my own horn here, but at least while I'm without a steady income, I've still got a few orders to deliver in time before the husband says "let's seal our last box, honey. We're moving to the Netherlands now" and after which, I'll probably have completely nothing to do but spend the euro in his wallet.

Until my move, getting married anyone? This home-stay mom's shop (http://beadsnribbons.fotopages.com/) is officially open for business.