Letter to Erin 20150520

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

Oh God, I'm stuffed.  Alhamdulillah.  I went to pay my power bill this morning, but I forgot to bring money, so I had to go back home and get my wallet.  By the time I finished the chore, it was already 11 am and I knew I wouldn't have time to cook, so I stopped by the Tuesday market to pick up some lunch.  11 am is getting late in the day for raw foods.  Thus, after after buying some rice, I browsed around to see what was left.  And this guy offered me almost 2 kilos of clams for RM2.  I couldn't refuse.

Now these are the teeny weeny clams, about the size of a dime or less each, which the locals call "Lala".  Any normal person would think, "What the hell would I do with clams that small?"  Well, I say that if you have patience with getting the meat out, then there are many options of dishes.  Let's just say that a kilo of Lala generates more broth and meat than a kilo of large clams.  It has something to do with density.  So the first thing I did when I got home was wash the clams, then steamed them.  You can't let clams sit around!  Then I watched them steam through the glass lid, while I ate my lunch.  I saw how the broth is generated: the clams squirt the broth out in their dying throngs.  Grotesque, huh?  All food is grotesque if you think about how it leaves the body.

ANYWAY!

I separated the broth then put everything in the cooler.  I didn't have time to get the meat out until 6 pm, which is a tedious task considering each meat is about the size of 3 grains of rice.  Or less.  What I did was hold a bunch of clams in my right hand and flicked the meat off with my left hand.  I got about 3 cups of meat by the time they called the sunset prayer, I guzzled half of that and I still had about a kilo of clams still in the shell so I stuck that in the freezer.  Dinner was simple: noodles in clam broth.  It was a huge helping.  I'm stuffed.  Alhamdulillah.  Tomorrow, I'm going to have to finish off all the clams and broth because it doesn't keep.  So I'm planning to rearrange a local recipe: keow teow kerang (fried flat noodles with cockles) but with clams.  You wanna join me for dinner?  It's going to take me all morning to shell those clams, but maybe I'll make it in time for lunch, but you're welcome to join me.  I love you, Erin.  And I need you.

Oh by the way, Ramadan is one month away.  This year it's about June 18, one day after my mother's birthday.  Ramadan is when Muslims fast from dawn to sunset everyday for a month.  Ramadan is my favorite time of year, because of the things that happen, strange or deep or whatever.  What are you going to do?