Wordy Musings : A day in the Kitchen

20th August 2012

I couldn't believe I spent almost 6 hours in the kitchen! It's the longest time I ever spent in a kitchen. 

For someone like me who prefers to keep meals simple, this is a record! 

I made planning to make some cakes this Hari Raya holiday. Try steaming a bigger cake using my newly bought baking tin from Daiso. I wanted to tried out several recipes from the blogs I read too.

So, this is what actually happened

In the morning,

9.30am          Quick Breakfast (dine outside )

10.00am        Make a run at the super market to get ingredients for lunch. (Super long q)

11.00am        Getting all the stuff ready to make blueberry yogurt ice cream. (Can't wait to share this recipe)

11.30am        Make blueberry frozen yogurt (BFY) 

Afternoon

12.00pm        Prepare lunch, put in the cooled BFY mixture in fridge

1.30pm          Lunch

2.00pm          Washing up and prepare to make cakes

2.30pm          Start to make cakes. Start with the bigger banana cranberry cake. (BCC)

3.00pm          Transfer BFY mixture into an airtight container. Stir vigorously and store in freezer

3.15pm          Put in BCC mixture into steamer. 

                      Start making second batch of cake, mini lemon blueberry cake. (LBC)

3.30pm          Put in LBC mixture into a frying pan to steam.

3.50pm          All cakes done. Washing up

4.30pm          Stir BFY mixture vigorously again. And repeat at 6pm and every half hour after that.

After spending half a day in the kitchen, I wondered how women of the past do it. Taking care of children, cooking and doing household chores, can they really be done single handedly especially they do not have machines like ice cream maker or oven? They do not even have washing machines, fridge and vacuum cleaners. How do they really handle, especially the meals have to be all made from scratch? Probably that is why they invented food like kimchi, salted fish, cheese which can stored easier and could simply whip a meal using them? 

I am thankful of having the option to dine out and the option to buy convenient food like ready made bread, so that I do not have to do everything from scratch. It can be quite difficult to plan for myself whenever my hubby and kid is not at home.

I am thankful that I have my hubby to watch over the little one while I am busy in the kitchen. In the olden days, they had bigger families and they lived together. Probably the womenfolk divided the chores among themselves so that some women would do the cooking, while the others do the household chores and take care of the children? 

Whatever it is, I am sure, it's not easy. I spent half a day in the kitchen and I was already glad that I didn't have to prepare breakfast and dinner. Then again, I still like to make meals for my family, and whenever possible, everything from scratch.