The ancient Chinese sage and mystic Lao Tze was supposed to have said that governing a big country is like cooking prawns and fish.

Indeed, the business of government is an art, and like no other, it requires a great deal of skills and years of practice. In recent weeks though, politics in Malaysia has been turned topsy-turvy by a series of Machiavellian thrusts and counter-thrusts. The heady turn of events leaves us the sideline on-lookers completely baffled and breathless. One needs a break from current event badly!

Fortunately for me, there is always the distraction of cooking prawns and fish. Cooking is still one of my favourite hobbies.

I picked up this good habit by watching my late mother toiling in the kitchen for hours on end when I was growing up in Kuching. She was typical of your traditional Teochew woman obsessed with feeding her children well. She was a meticulous perfectionist, and lent credence to the proverbial term 'mother's cooking".

Then one day, I found myself in the frozen landscape of Winnipeg right smack in the middle of the Canadian Prairies. I soon grew tired of the unimaginative though wholesome Canadian cuisine. It was not long before I started cooking for myself, the dishes that I remembered from my childhood days.

Cooking a pot of goodies over the stove for hours also served a practical purpose. In the Canadian winter, the temperature could dip below zero degree for months on end. The stove helped to heat up the room.

The Canadians, like any people in the Western world, did not believe in consuming animal parts, which were very cheap. Living on a foreign student's shoe string budget, I thrived on animal parts as my main fare for many years. My favourite was pork knuckles, at 39 Canadian cents per pound at that time.

Chinese cooking the best

It was easy to cook. You just boil them on a slow fire for a few hours with a whole bunch of spices, particularly whole pepper berries - while you read and study. When cooked, the content was poured into a tray. When cooled, you thrust the tray into the fridge, and the pork knuckle could sustain you delightfully for many days at all hours of the day.

Late one night, Tom - a classmate of Ukrainian descent who was studying for the priesthood - decided to crash at my place. He opened my fridge door, and beamed with joy at the sight of my pork knuckles! Ravenously tearing away at the pig's tendon, he declared that was how the Ukrainian people would prepare their favourite part of the pig! To complete his enjoyment, I also fried a few Ukrainian blood sausages.

It is strange how food can kindle in you the feeling of a homeland. Canada was a great country, and I was already a "landed immigrant", a permanent resident. I had two university degrees under my belt, and had just turned down a job to run a large health facility catering to young disabled persons.

Late one night again, I was lying awake in my deep frozen quarters in my eternal battle against insomnia, when suddenly I was attacked by a pang of hunger for the kangkong belacan that only my mother could prepare. That was the moment when I decided to re-immigrate back to Sarawak.

Since then, I have travelled far and wide in the world, and have sampled the culinary delights of many countries. With no apology to the French, I still think that Chinese cooking is the best in the world. In Germany though, I did discover pork knuckle prepared whole that was every bit as delicious as mine! The Germans also know how to make the best bread in the world, the kind that you rarely get in Malaysia.

In later years, it almost invariably turns out that I am one of the best cooks around. Occasionally, I would prepare a feast and invite a bunch of friends over to sample my skills.

As all cooks will tell you, cooking is a labour of love. You labour in the kitchen because you want to see the happiness of people you love when they did into your dishes of divine creation. Sharing a meal has always been the gesture of friendship, good will, and community spirit.

The meal starts with the planning of the dishes, as you think of the preferences and taboos of the individual guests. A good cook will always carry his entire repertoire of secret recipes in his head. Here, the creative imagination is absolutely essential; long before you even go shopping, you have to imagine how your dishes will smell, taste and look like.

Hours in the kitchen

A good cook must do all the shopping himself of course, with the shopping list firmly engrained in the head. The freshness of the ingredients is paramount. There must be a balance of seafood, meat, fruits, and vegetables, as well as the spices, herbs, and yes, the various types of chillies.

Then, it is back to the kitchen. Hours before the guests arrive, without the advantage of kitchen help, you have to labour for hours, cleaning, peeling, chopping, dicing, washing, soaking, and putting away all the prepared materials in an orderly manner. A good cook must be a good organiser of all things associated with the kitchen. He would know where everything is, and can reach for it without even looking.

Then, you start the actual process. The dishes that must be served piping hot must be prepared last. The dishes like curry or spiced duck can be prepared first. There you go, frying, stewing, boiling, braising, steaming, and the flow of perpetual motion absorbs you into the river of life. You forget about the intrigue in Malaysian politics, the unpaid bills, and the fearsome prospect of inflation. Cooking is the most therapeutic exercise in the world.

Naturally, you will never have to measure your salt or pepper. From long years of practice, a mere pinch will create the desired degree of saltiness. Everything over the wok or the pot is done with an instinctive intuitive exactness with the minimum of motion.

By the time the guests arrive, the dishes will have been served on the table, complete with all kinds of garnishes. The final product must not only taste good, but must also smell and look heavenly.

The trouble is this: you have been slaving away in the kitchen for hours, so totally immersed in all the smell of your own cooking, that by the time the feasting begins, the cook would have lost all appetite. The physical exhaustion would have also masked the hunger. So you just sit back, watch your dear guests wolf down your labour of love, and bask in their accolade.

In my recent reclusive retired years, I seldom cook for a big party; it is physically too demanding.

But I still cook for myself most of the time. Eating out is not always as pleasant as food writers say it is. You get tired of the same dishes. You have to negotiate through too much double parked cars, while driving around to look for a parking space. You have to contend with too many foreign waiters and waitresses who can never understand what you want and who move like robots.

So eventually, I end up eating at home most of the time. My favourite is still my mother's Teochew porridge. These days, I prefer to mix Thai fragrant rice with Bario rice from Sarawak.

Teochew porridge is vastly different from the Cantonese porridge they call "chok". The Cantonese cook their porridge to a glue, while the Teochew prefer their watery porridge with the whole grains split. Timing and the heat of the flame are the two most important factors.

When cooked, the porridge is accompanied by an assortment of salty dishes, like salted fish, salted eggs, pickled vegetables, peanuts, small anchovies, and any vegetables that you care to whip up in a jiffy. Occasionally, two steamed kambong fish will complement the simple but delicious and nourishing feast.

All this talk makes me hungry. I think I shall push away from my computer keyboard, and proceed to the kitchen for my usual lunch of porridge. Thank God I can leave national politics for a while. May you enjoy your food.