Letter to Julia 20120703

In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Merciful.

**It's still the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show marathon on Shadowplay TV**

Lately, the food my Mom has been serving me at her house has been so awesome.  The ingredients have been classy and perfectly cooked, and the recipes were very calculated.  Plus, my stomach didn't lodge a single complaint!  Whoever cooked all that delicious food is a very intelligent cook.  Last night, I was about to prepare pepper steak for myself again.  I love pepper steak.  It's super spicy, but my stomach absorbs all of it.    Then I found clams going for RM5 for 2 kilos when I went to night market, so I decided to have clams instead.  The key to cooking clams is clam broth: the juices inside the clam that spill out when you heat up the clam and it opens up.  It's already very salty, so whatever fond you create must have minimal salt.  Clam broth becomes poisonous quickly, so use up any leftover clam broth immediately!  I also bought half a kilo of mackerel.  Most cooks here like to throw in the mackerel into their soups and sauces bones and heads included.  I like to fillet and remove the heads of mackerel.  I keep the fillets for cooking or eating raw, and the bones I fry up until crisp as an alternative source of calcium to milk, which gives me the runs.  Plus, I like the flavor.  I offered some fried fish bones to my parents once, and they both gave me the dirtiest look in the world.

Grappling hooks are used for climbing.  The symbolism of grappling hooks being used to lock a door as it applies to us is that we need not seek anymore status or recognition.  We are already as high as we can be.  All we need to do is just be ourselves, and to live as normally and happily with each other as possible.  Then as we enter the darkness of the sundry shop, we must remember that it is wisest to grow slowly, using resources that are already available.  We must SLOW DOWN.  We must pray for Allah to strengthen our faith, to God and to each other, and to make our path together easy.

I love you, Julia.