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The Breadman is one of my favorite people, he comes to my neighborhood everyday at 4.00 in the afternoon. It is a normal site to have a group of women and children crowding around him as he parks his bicycle and opens up the big cone bread cover of the container strapped to the back of his bicyle. Besides that he has loaves of bread hung around the handles of his bike and every possible space he can find around the big bread container.

I can see the excitement on the faces of children surrounding him. There are sweet buns filled with coconut, cream horns, sweet braided bread and other hugh loaves of uncut bread. Ah! the simple joys of life. I can still smell the aroma of baked goods as I stood there waiting for my turn. What is it going to be today, cream horns or the yummy coconut buns ?

I”m Peng Jones, a Malaysian-born Cantonese and owner/instructor of Asian Cookery since 1989.  I am also member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (I.A.C.P.) and a Certified Culinary Professional (C.C.P.).  Asian Cookery specializes in Asian foods including Chinese, Malaysian, Thai, Vietnamese, and Indian.  You can see more at our website at www.asiancookery.net.

Nasi Lemak is a Malay word that literally means ‘rice in cream’.

I remember many mornings of waiting in line to buy a packet of Nasi Lemak while I was teenage schoolgirl. Most of the time my packed lunch are simple butter and jam sandwiches or leftovers from last night’s dinner but there are days that my mother will give me some money to buy lunch. That is a real treat!

Before I walked to school in the morning I will go across the street to buy some Nasi Lemak. The ownner of this food stall is an elegant Malay lady. She is modestly dressed, always with an apron wrapped around her. Her long black hair is combed into a neat bun, she is soft spoken and pleasant. There was always a long line of people waiting to be served and I hope she will move a little faster so that I would not be late for school.

There are two big stacks of cut newspaper and banana leaves at her litte wooden table and little metal containers/pots of condiments like sliced cucumber,sliced hard boiled eggs,fried anchovies, braised water convulvus,roasted peanuts and sambal anchovies. There was cuttlefish and chicken sambal if you are willing to pay for some special additions. She has a big wooden bucket of cooked steamed rice (rice is steamed in coconut milk and flavored with few pieces of knotted screwpine leaves).

She will scoop a little rice onto a piece of banana leaf lined with newspaper and will add a few slices of cucumbers, small spoonfuls of fried anchovies,roasted peanuts and sambal. Then, she will artfully wrapped it up into a neat little packet.

The sweet aroma of the freshly cooked rice and aromatic spices in the different sambals will always linger in my memory. There are cold winter mornings that I would wake up and feel like this is the perfect day for ‘Nasi Lemak’. After 22 years of marriage my American husband is just now a new Nasi Lemak fan and
now joins me to say ‘Today feels like a Nasi Lemak Day’