Quay Po Cooks: July 2010

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Why the name, Quay Po Cooks?

Why the name, Quay Po Cooks?

I chose the name Quay Po Cooks because first of all I do not know how to cook before I met my hubby who is an American. I remember when he asked me to bake a cake from a premix box following the instruction, I made a big mess out of it!! Then after we were married in late 1996, I started to pick up cooking but mostly Western food and baking cookies, pies and cakes. My hubby is my teacher on the Western Cuisine:). Oh, coming back to why I chose the name Quay Po Cooks for this blog. It is because after I married my hubby, my family people and some of my close friends call me Quay Po. Reason is because I married a Quay Lo.

Although my Mum, who is now 75 years old still cooks excellent and tasty Chinese food, I did not learn a thing from her so far. Family and friends have asked me to not let Mum's recipes go to waste and encouraged me to pick up from her all her specialties and document it. Simple home cooked dishes like, Steam Salted fish with pork, Choy Geok or Sour Vegetables, Stew Lobak with pork ribs, pork patty in "hor sin" sauce and sauteed onions, Ipoh Style Chai, and many more!!

I was thinking of taking videos of Mum going marketing, preparing the food and cooking them. The reason is her recipes have no measurement of the ingredients, it is a hand full of this and a pinch of that and "agak-agak" for this and that... AIYOH!!

I might need to get my son to teach me how to use his Movie Cam so that I can take some good quality videos. Looks like there are some preparation work to do before this Blog goes off the ground.

Stay tuned!!

A LITTLE ABOUT THIS QUAY PO

Before I was married to my "Quay Lo" (Guaylo) husband, I did not know how to bake or cook. Subsequently I learned some baking and cooking Western cuisine from him, and providing his food for him launched an interest in cooking in general. Many of my Chinese friends and family told me that "Quay" is the wrong spelling for devil in Cantonese. The right spelling should be "Kwai" or "Guay". Well, somehow I like the spelling "Quay" better although I have to agree that it does not sound very Cantonese. Try asking a Westerner to pronounce "Kwai" and you will probably hear "Quay" haha. Whether is "Quay" or "Kwai" or "Guay, just know the devil woman is me when you see Quay Po Cooks. My hubby said if people pronounce "Quay" as "Key" is even better because I am the key to his heart. LOL!

Only now, have I started to learn the traditional Cantonese cuisine of my Mum. She cooks fabulously and all her specialties are divine. These two interests, my husband's Western food, and my mother's traditional food, prompted me to document them so they will not be lost.

Here, I wish to share my cooking and baking experience with my readers. I also hope to inspire those who do not know how to cook or bake to do so because, trust me, if I can, you can too.

Something I'd like to mention is that I find that many people are rather unwilling to share their recipes. However, for me, I think differently. I think good recipes should be shared thus allowing as many people to enjoy it as possible. Unless those recipes are for doing business, I don't see why we want to keep them all to ourselves. So if you are generous in sharing your recipes, you are welcome to share on my blog. Send the recipes to me and better still with pictures of the final products and I will be very happy to post them them with credits to you of course.

Our cuisine is a deeply embedded part of our culture. When two cultures come together under the same roof the results in the kitchen can sometimes be comedic, sometimes confrontational, but more often it is a journey full of surprises and discovery. There is joy in our food. If we think upon this, it is intuitively obvious. This blog is a journey of joy and sharing, reflecting what the French like to call "joie de vivre" (joy of living). No one could be more different from one another then my husband and my mother. Yet one thing they share in common is knowing intuitively that food, cooking, and sharing can be avenues of joy in life itself. So herein, help yourself, to a little joy and , if you like it, share it with your own family and friends. Joy is something that should be shared.