Popiah Day

It's POPIAH (aka Chinese wraps) Day !!! The bag of turnips that I saw on the kitchen floor yesterday was magically transformed into popiah fillings when I woke up this morning, just kidding, magic don't occur without the magician-- my mom. When I woke up around 10, my amazingly diligent & wonderwoman mother was frying an entire wok filled with 8 shredded turnips flavoured with Chinese soy sauce, fried shallots, pork belly and I've no idea what else. I helped to dice up some hard-boiled eggs, Chinese sausages, washed the fresh lettuce and big bag of bean sprouts. Meanwhile, one kilogram of homemade chilli paste was already waiting to be eaten since yesterday when my mother made them. The peanuts are grounded to chunks, beanspouts cooked in no time, tofu cut into strips and fried....

When it was time to serve, my brother was awed. It looks like a feast and it is. We dug in and had popiah the entire day today. What my mother made in a morning was enough to last the entire day (imagine! 8 turnips!). It was delicious. It was fun to eat! What never fails to fascinate is the different way everyone wrap their own popiahs. My brothers always made 'pregnant' ones. Mine's usually just nice. Grandma's popiah is surprisingly novice. My sister in law's popiah was a failure with its contents spilling all over the plate. Everyone does it differently, choosing to put different ingredients in differently. And me, I always get the usual comment that I'm eating too much chilli.

For dinner, I ate 3 popiah with gusto and washed it all down with a small bottle of chardonnay which I've been itching to drink. The wine was nice and refreshing and it allowed me to eat my last popiah even though I swore I was full after my second. A nice oaked flavour coated my tongue and soothe my palate with the wine. I hope all these talk about food isn't making you hungry. Cheers.