I enjoy cooking for frens & people i love and ever since moving to KL over 2 years ago ... i've been doing it quite regularly.

I can't really remember when i started cooking ... or where or who I learnt it from.

A close friend recently came to my place to cook for me and he struggled to put a meal together with the pots, pans and things i had in my kitchen. He said I had very "ang mo" utensils, pots, pans and even "ang mo" oil and spices which he had no idea how to use. I had to run down to the corner provision shop to get him canola-oil so he cud deep-fry his salmon.

Watching & helping him prepare and cook the meal ... and finally tasting the food .... I realised i don't really know much about chinese cooking. In fact, what I know about cooking is self-taught and sketchy at best coz i'm making it up as i cook each time. I usually get it right just by following recipes so I guess I sort-of can cook.

Started to read a cookbook from cover to cover ... you know ... go through those intro pages we all usually skip ... and realised the following things:
- olive oil should not be used for asian cooking coz the taste clash
- teflon is a "no-no"
- real woks need to be seasoned with oil and they become non-stick if u do it right
- u shudn't wash a proper wok with soap ... just use hot water and u shud oil ur wok before putting it away
- chinese cooking means u cut meat and vegeatbles very differently than if u were doing it for a western dish (my fren complained i cut mushrooms for his soup in a way he'd never seen before)

Bought a wok over the weekend with the help of my fren. threw away the teflon frying-pan-cum-sort-of-wok that i used to use.

So now i have a wok to add to the stainless steel cookware i have and some japanese cooking pots and pans i inherited from my mom

Guess its the start of me learning how to cook properly.

Question now is ... will i be my usual obsessive compulsive self about learning to cook and keep at it constantly till i get somewhat proficient at it

If so .... poor robin and bryan ... they'll have to be guniea pigs for all the things i whip up