Eid Mubarak & Selamat Hari Raya From My Family To Yours!

For the first time since my uni days in New Zealand, I didn't get to celebrate any day of the Ramadhan month and Eid with my family and Shah's family. That being said, I'm also pretty content here with my little family of 6 (me, Shah, and our four furbabies, of course), and even though we're hours and hours apart, more than anything I am thankful that all our families are healthy and well. 

It was such a good month of Ramadhan for Shah and me, we wish it could have gone on longer! There's always a special kind of magic of celebrating Ramadhan with my family back in my hometown (mostly involving my mom's cooking, now that I think about it, but also performing the Tarawih prayer with the entire family at night) but being in Johor here, we've had the opportunity to create our own kind of Ramadhan magic. Well, the pandemic version, of course; we couldn't go to the mosques for prayers and with lockdown going on, we've relied on our own home-cooking more than any other previous Ramadhan.

As for Eid, never in my life have I cooked practically a table full of local Eid food — so glad Shah was on peeling and chopping duty, which is my least favourite part of cooking! There was definite satisfaction in seeing all our hard work on the table, all ready to be feasted on, on the morning of Eid last week.

Even when we couldn't visit anybody or have anybody visited us, Shah and I still chose to get all dressed up just to get into the spirit of Eid. And being the kind of cat mom that I am, I also dressed up all our furbabies in cat outfits fashioned after our local traditional wears.

Here are snippets from our Eid morning last Thursday:

Aside from the butterscotch cookies and the pavlova — both of which I baked —  the food we've prepared are classic Eid food in Malaysia. There were nasi impit, ketupat palas, and lemang, which are all made of rice but prepared in very different ways, creating different flavours. Kuah kacang is basically the peanut sauce for dipping (except I always treat it like soup on my plate topped with nasi impit, as it's my ultimate favourite!). 

The main proteins were the chicken rendang — which, even to my own surprise, turned out good, seeing as it was my first time ever making it (perhaps you've seen the video where Gordon Ramsay learned to make beef rendang?) — and beef serunding, posted to us by Shah's parents. 

Another firm Eid food of mine is lodeh, a soupy dish comprising of coconut milk, loads of veggies and some prawns, and I made squid sambal to complement the lodeh.

We put Betty in a nude-coloured baju kebaya, Moshi and Nobu in a red and purple baju kurung respectively, and there's Gandalf in a mini black baju melayu with an accompanying songkok on his head, just like his Pappa. (I'm their Mamma, FYI.)
PS: Before anyone asks, I'll just reveal that Betty accidentally scratch the arms of my chair that one time and I am basically never going to get over it.

We got such a kick out of dressing them up, and being total cat parents they're definitely a highlight of our Eid morning!

That being said, how lucky are we to live as we do, without having to worry about food on the table, or keeping warm and comfortable, and to just feel at peace? I am thinking about our Muslim brothers and sisters in Palestine facing oppression and displacement at their own home ground and extending my prayers to them.

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I hope you enjoyed reading this post. Thank you for continuing to visit The Good Weekender! Until my next post ❤