Stories, Laughter and Homemade Yogurt

One of the things Mum and I do every day now is share stories with each other.

Mum tells me stories about her younger days, while I share with her about my life back in KL over the past 35 years. Through these conversations, I am discovering a side of Mum that I never fully knew before.

Apparently, Mum was quite a “hottie” in her younger days 😂 She was beautiful, intelligent, kind-hearted, and very well-liked by her teachers and friends. Many men admired her too — her admirers included a prominent doctor, an engineer, and today I found out that she even had an Olympic swimmer from the 1960s pursuing her and this man recently looked for her on FB and added her as friend 😄

These storytelling sessions have now become our favourite pastime after lunch and dinner. While we wash dishes and clean up the kitchen, we chat, laugh and exchange memories.

Mum told me that before I moved back to Ipoh, she hardly talked because Dad is a quiet man who doesn’t say much. She talked so little that whenever she did talk, she would sometimes cough non-stop. Now, she can talk and talk and talk… and she doesn’t cough anymore 😂

I guess laughter, companionship and having someone to share life with can be so healing.

And speaking of Mum’s love… here’s her homemade yogurt that she makes specially for me in the pressure cooker. ❤️

It is honestly the most delicious yogurt ever — made with fresh milk, a starter from my existing store-bought yogurt, coconut cream, and pure pandan juice from the pandan leaves in our garden.

No added sugar, full of natural goodness, with the lovely fragrance of pandan and creamy coconut.

Ingredients for santan pandan yogurt.

Kept in the pressure cooker in yogurt mode for 6 - 8 hours in low heat.

Santan Pandan Yogurt in the foreground for me and soy milk yogurt in the background for mum who's lactose intolerant.