Don’t Touch My Child! Lessons from Asia

Posted by Multilingual Mama

The American psyche is still reeling 33 years after the disappearance of little Etan Patz on his neighborhood corner. Kids have never been more coddled and cooped up. Activities like biking to school, which were once commonplace, now risk getting parents reported to social services, publicly ostracized, thrown in jail and on occasion nearly punched out by well-meaning grannies.

Is Our Fear Founded?

Every successive generation of technology along with the widespread adoption of social media means we are now, more than ever, aware of potential dangers. Couple this with competing media outlets battling it out for viewers, and we have a very distorted view of the threats facing our children today.

This article was written for In Culture Parent. To continue reading please click here.

Fast Food Showdown: A Singaporean Reflection

Posted by Multilingual Mama

When we started looking into moving to Southeast Asia, specifically Singapore, we were lucky enough to have friends of friends we could talk to about what to expect. My approach to mining these valuable resources made mountaintop removal look gentle. I will be forever grateful for the long email exchanges and Skype phone calls various folks endured, where conversations were more akin to military interrogations.

Towards the end of one of our marathon calls, I was really surprised by something a mama friend told me. She said that if given the choice between a Saturday treat of McDonald’s or chicken rice—a Singaporean staple from the hawker stands, their version of fast food that is NOTHING like fast food as we know it—the kids would choose chicken rice every time. I had trouble believing this on a number of levels.

This post was written for A is for Manzana, my blog on In Culture Parent. To continue reading please click here.

Smacking the Dough to Perfection: A Culinary Digression.

Posted by Multilingual Mama

It’s not that I am lazy, though I haven’t ruled that out entirely. And I really don’t like rushing things (Go Slow!) but I also don’t like spending more time than is necessary especially with two young banshees running around the place. I also have an extreme aversion to most things pre-made and pre-packaged, especially when they are simple to make.

With that, I am going to share my mother’s secret pastry recipe. While her mother and siblings all started buying pre-made ‘pate a tarte’ my mother who had much more on her plate (i.e. working full-time, keeping house with no help and bringing up three kids) would never compromise on quality and taste. Here is one of her many wonderful ‘shortcuts’:

INGREDIENTS:

125 grams of butter
250 grams of flour
Generous pinch of salt
Splash of milk as needed

UTENSILS

A saucepan
A wooden spoon
A quiche dish
Your hands

Have all your ingredients ready and at your side. There is no time to go hunting for anything.

Melt the butter in the saucepan under low heat. Cut into even pieces to speed up melting.
When melted, remove from heat.
Mix in the flour & salt with wooden spoon. You really want to have your milk ready and open by your side here.
THE TRICKY PART: As the flour starts to absorb the butter, you add a splash of milk. It needs to be enough to bring it all together without it being too wet. Better to put too little to start and add a second splash then too much. I needed to add a wee bit more milk as was a tad too crumbly. You want to handle the dough as little as possible so don’t spend too long on this; the whole process should take less than a minute.
Et Voila! you have your ball of dough. Quickly slap it down into the middle of the quiche/tarte dish. That’s right NO ROLLING PINS! Now you get why I love this recipe.
Time to get your frustrations out. Smack the dough out working from the center towards the edge and turning your dish slowly a round so you work it out gradually.
Set your OCD aside. Do not worry if you spread it too thin and it splits. You can just pull a little from the edge and patch the hole. If you don’t manage to get enough dough on all the borders you can just shift bits from one edge to the other. All imperfections will be hidden. I promise.
Final step is optional: decorative fork markings around the edge.

Now you have your pastry ready for whatever filling you want. You can make it ahead of time and just keep it in the fridge. I am partial to savory foods so I mostly make quiches with the odd tart tarte. You can sweeten the dough by adding sugar to the flour but you will have to play around with quantities since I never do. I am guessing a couple of tablespoons would suffice. (Or une cuillere a soup for any frenchies reading)

As with everything, practice makes perfect. This one was a little rougher around the edges – literally- as making and photographing the pastry simultaneously was more challenging than I’d expected. That said, the results were divine.

Bon Appetit!

At a Loss for Words: My Foreign Language Meltdown

Posted by Multilingual Mama

I am probably spoiled, being brought up bilingual and exposed to many languages and cultures. Perhaps I just haven’t been adventurous enough in my travels, but I don’t ever recall finding myself in a situation where I could neither derive any inkling of meaning from the exchange nor express in any terms or gesticulations what I needed to say—that is until now.

A few days after arriving at our new home in Bangkok, I set off for the hospital with a hefty fever, bronchitis and my two kids in tow since one of them was also sick. We had an easy and quick taxi ride there, despite the dreaded traffic, and shelled out just over 50 Baht (US $1.65).

An hour or so later, wowed by the incredible efficiency of our visit and the modernity of the hospital, and carrying two stylish bags of meds for my eldest and myself, we took a taxi back home. I check if the driver knows the main artery we live right beside, since I am utterly incapable of giving detailed directions. Geez I can’t even introduce myself yet. The driver vigorously shakes her head, yes, she knows, and off we go. I am not too worried as I have the address written both in roman and Thai characters as a backup.

Fast forward twenty minutes with no recognizable landmarks, and she makes the first call for directions…

This post was written for In Culture Parent. To continue reading please click here!