To Market, To Market

I spent the whole Tuesday morning in the kitchen attempting to whip up a tasty edible meal for the Sir Dewei in return for his chivalry. More importantly, I wanted to make good old Cantonese soup for Her Highness Agnes who needed all the nourishment she could get for a speedy recovery. (My mum had to ask, "Are you making the soup for boy or girl?")

For the first time, I had to go the the neighbourhood market to get fresh ingredients for the meal I was going to prepare. I have not been to the market for so long that I did not realise it was upgraded. I could no longer locate the butcher my mum frequented.

Although the new layout was unexpected, it was neat. Veggie sellers, chicken sellers, butchers, fishmongers, florists were each given an alley to sell their wares. Thinking like a smart (first-time) homemaker, I made a beeline for the stalls with the most customers.

Veggie stall
I picked out two healthy looking onions (which later turned out to be 4 times too much for a two person meal) and paid twenty cents for them. They cost next to nothing! And that made me happy. See, I am a domestic goddess.

Butcher's
The butcher with the most customers looked really experienced so I ordered in Cantonese, as instructed by my mum (also partly cos I didn't know how to order what I wanted in Mandarin). I had other instructions as well i.e. remove the skin and the fats but the assistant didn't seem to understand me. In the end, despite my attempt to speak polished Cantonese, I had to mix in some Mandarin to make sure my message got across. Totally unglam.

Later I got home to realise the two different parts of the pig that I bought looked pretty much the same. I could only dump both into the pot without following the procedure of boiling one first and complicated instructions like that.

Chicken stall
I needed to get chicken wings and chicken feet. Unfortunately for me, none of the chicken sellers had customers (I guess 9 plus was a pretty late hour for grocery shoppers at the wet market) at that moment. I chose to buy from the most kindly looking uncle who, of course, turned out to be a very shrewd man.

He told me each chicken wing cost 40 cents. I pondered that for a second when he said, "Five for 2 dollars." To the amateur domestic goddess, it sounded like a good bargain. To the marketing student, it sounded like bundled pricing, i.e a good bargain. Only after paying, I realised five 40 cents chicken wings cost exactly 2 dollars; it was simple Math, not exactly a bargain...

Then I told him I wanted chicken feet, about 10 pieces. The uncle said, "Give me fifty cents. You will get more than 10 pieces. Other people here sell chicken feet at 5 cents a piece (must be an attempt to confuse me with the prices again)." The packet of chicken feet which he threw at me contained 20 pieces. I didn't know what to do with so many pieces, so I chucked a couple of ugly looking ones away when I got home.

At the end of bustling and being clumsy in the kitchen, I came up with 1. oyster sauce (overcooked and too salty) chicken wings, 2. (messy pile of) fried egg with onion, 3. (not rich enough) chicken feet with peanut soup, 4. rice. At least I got the rice right. And Dewei was kind enough to comment that the food smelled fragrant. And Agnes was very touched by my soup.

Oh well, it was fun nonetheless.