Hello blog,

... long time no see!

I just wanted to write about a small adventure I had with chilies yesterday.

See, I have three small students. Two sisters and their neighbour. Ella is 7, Frieda is 5 and the neighbour's daughter, Nola, is 5 too. So one day out of the blue Ella and Frieda's mom asked me, "Hazel, can you cook?" Me: Mumble mumble mumble... Mom: " Can you cook well?" Then she asked me to cook Malaysian food for all of them after the last lesson of the summer. I bravely agreed, then went home to panic and ask everyone for ideas.

One night, holy intervention! I dreamt about steamboat. When I woke I considered it, I thought it was a good idea, right? Just buy all the ingredients and I won't even have to cook! So last Saturday, I told them about it. There tragedy struck. The neighbours already knew about this "Chinese fondue"! Apparently they cook it sometimes during winter cos it keeps them warm. To me it was like a stab in the face.

So yesterday. I got a recipe off the internet and went to the kitchen to try cooking sambal for nasi lemak. One of the ingredients called for was 10 deseeded red chilies. I got to work. I had fun deseeding those chilies one by one: "Wah, look how many seeds there are! Lucky they're all being thrown away, otherwise the sambal would be really spicy..." When I was done I had a small handful of chili seeds and stood there admiring it for a while. Then I went on cooking. About 10 minutes later I noticed an old cut on my finger started hurting again. Half an hour later, the pain spread to all my fingers. An hour later, my hands were on fire!!! I had to keep washing them in ice-cold water to numb the pain. And I couldn't even feel the cold on my hands anymore. When I had to leave the kitchen I brought a pot of cold water with me. In two hours my hands were red and swollen. It became so unbearable I went online to search for remedies... I tried vegetable oil, vinegar, even milk, which worked the best cos it was like instant relief as long as I kept my hands soaking in it. The worst was the vinegar, which only added to the pain.

I watched movies till about 4 in the morning to distract myself, plus I remembered my friend's tips from her baby delivery class that breathing is the key to managing pain so I sat there and concentrated on my breathing like a pregnant woman. Around then I decided I should go to sleep even if it still hurt. Woke up today and flexed my fingers, phew, it doesn't hurt anymore!!! I only still have sensitive skin and really dry skin from being washed so much but that's really a small thing.

So yup, small torture story lor.

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Update 04.08:
Lunch with the students' families went well!!! The food was goooood, though the kids didn't like it and left their plates half full, their parents loved it. I did too :D