I'm touched to receive gifts of food this season. The dining table was piled full again. It hasn't quite emptied out since Christmas. When I don't bother hosting, I obviously use the dining table to place all sorts of gifts of food on it.
However, I am so biased. I appreciate the salty and savory over sweets and sugary tarts or bakes. I don't have a habit of taking a cookie or anything sweet in the afternoons or with coffee. I'd consider a small salty dark chocolate cookie though. Heh. I like pineapple tarts, but it's very very very hard to find the ones I want. Nothing comes close to the tarts I have in mind, or that I have tasted and love. It's about the balance of butter vs a rich thick tart pineapple jam that isn't commercially made in big batches.
That day, my lunch at home was made up of gifts and people's thoughts. Aunty J had given me her home-pickled belimbing and achar. M gave us two jars of her Mum's chilli. And that day, as I was wrapping up my visit, one of my old folks (on the roster) handed me a box of rice, pork chop and egg tofu. She cooked the batch for herself and the neighbors and saved me a portion by way of a Lunar New Year gift.
I heated up all these for lunch the next day. How lovely. I added all the gifted condiments to this heartfelt bowl of care. The achar is soooo good. It's very hard to taste good achar nowadays. I don't even know how many people get what good achar is. I'm so lucky to get this small precious jar.
The pickled belimbing, as always, is friggin sour. But that went well with M's mum's super hot chilli. I dunno if that's counted as sambal belachan because it tasted like super spicy chicken rice chilli to me. I don't like putting lime with any sort of chilli, but paired with belimbing, that was perfect. This chilli is likely too spicy for many people. But the husband and I are chilli fiends, so it's just right for us.
Lunch was truly perfect. It made my stomach really happy.
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