"I DON'T KNOW!"
In Kalanguya, we have an expression which we use in reply to almost everything, "Tawwey"or its variants "Tawwey ah!"or "Tawwey ngo!" Being the Full Blooded Kalanguya that I am, my mind automatically uses it to answer any question in any language, when my mind is not able to focus to think of something quick to say. It roughly translates to "I don't know or אני לא יודעת! in Hebrew, but it also covers instances when a person meant to say, "I don't have/want to give an opinion about that; I don't care to comment on that, or it doesn't matter to me."
The most recent I used it was this morning while I was preparing breakfast, a young man asked me what was the food I was putting on the table at the time. My automatic reply was, "I don't know." After a few moments, I was thinking about it, repeating it to myself, and I thought it might have sounded a bit rude, even to my weird ears.
The truth was that I really do not have an idea what I cooked. Because yesterday, we cut too much onions and there were bell peppers that are going bad quickly so I thought I should use them. I started sauteing the onions, cut up the wrinkly bell peppers, also tomatoes that are too ripe, cut them up too, and threw them into the pan. I looked at it and they looked so boring so instead of doing plain scrambled eggs as I originally planned, I just went ahead and broke all the eggs on top of the mixed veggies. In other words, just like in any of my food preparations, I really do not follow recipes, (that is why I cannot truly cook something that would taste the same twice). They always evolve, and sometimes that is good because it does not really matter to me if I have all the ingredients for something I want to cook or if I don't, but then when somebody asks me what I've cooked, my quick answer is "I don't know"and it is not always a good reply to say. I could have just said, eggs and mixed veggies. So I resolve to work on something better to say, starting today.
Yeah, right! :-)
But what I love about cooking is when people ask me to cook for them again after they tasted what I prepared the last time. I do it to other people, I keep making hints at people to cook me something.. haha.. but that is me trying to show appreciation (okay, I'll admit that you can also throw in there my love for particular dishes). But I think, sometimes I overdo it and people get pressured and don't appreciate it. To the ones I did this before, my apologies. :-) Please take it as my way of appreciating you and what we call in Filipino, "lambing." Lambing is a show of acceptance, respect and love, by getting one person to do you some form of favour because you feel like s/he has become family.
mY Synapses...
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