In the Raya Mood 2

The best part of raya is actually the preparation, especially the day before. This year we celebrate the first raya in my kampung, so we got busy with preparing lemang, rendang and kelamai (pumpkin cake in bamboo). The riuh-pikuk from the kids and cousins is unmatchable by the rest of the kids in the neighboring houses. This year, all my mom's grandchildren are back, so the pitch and screams are almost 100 decibles, especially chasing after the chickens.


This year, we had two types of rendang, rendang daging rusa (venison) and buffalo meat rendang. On top of that, the evergreen gulai ayam kampung, without the skin because all these kids had torn away the skin while pulling off the feathers. Thank god, only one chicken is skinless, otherwise, the flavor would have been different.

And Mama was in-charged of the kitchen, with the blending and the "tumis'ing", managed to put these rendang on the stove before Asar. Ended up with sore shoulders - results of dehusking coconut with Papa and fidgety fingers after squeezing the coconut milk.

The gentlemen? Well they were kept busy with the lemang and kelamai outside. The weather was excellent, so they didn't have much trouble taking care of the fire. Somehow, my dad was a little bit disappointed as the lemang was cooked to perfection - no kerak! And he loves kerak lemang!

So the timing was nice, we had lemang, gulai ayam and rendang for the buka puasa of the last day of Ramadhan. The kids just love the gulai ayam, not hot at all, while the parents were wishing it should have been a little bit spicier and hot...