Nasi Lemak, Mee Maggie and McDonald

These are some of my son's fave food, albeit not healthy ones. Before we came to Alabama, we have 'psychoed' him that he will not be able to eat nasi lemak that easily. "Mummy cannot just go to the shop and buy. Mummy will have to cook for you but mummy cannot do it all the time." Nasi lemak is easy to make but I find that the sambal is the most tedious. You just have to get the right concoction of dried red chillies ground to a paste, correct amount of belacan, onions, tamarind juice, salt and sugar. And the aroma will penetrate every corner of your kitchen and house, sinking itself even into your clothes and your sofa. The best sambal I think, will be able to make you sneeze. And furthermore I have to import the chillies and belacan. I've tried one of the dried chillies here but it just didn't work. And Afzal loves sambal. All he needs is plain white rice (not necessarily the coconut milk flavored rice), sambal and that succulent crispy ayam goreng. And that is nasi lemak for him.

We have also brainwashed Afzal that he is not able to eat as much at McDonald like he would be able to in Singapore because the McDonald here is not halal. Either we are very successful in the brainwashing or Afzal is very adaptable and whenever he wants McDonald, he will only ask for fries and occasionally the chocolate sundae. Sometimes either me or my husband will purposely ask the other whether we want a cheeseburger or chicken, and Afzal will immediately retort in horror, "you cannot eat the burger and chicken here, it is not halal!" There you go, our little but very important talk have sunk into his brain cells.

When our stock of Maggie Mee runs dry, we will just go to Walmart and buy shrimp ramen and all of us are happy with that.

I always pack Afzal his lunch to school as we know the school does not serve halal food. And since the queue for breakfast is very long and as Ms Smith, his homeroom teacher is not there to watch over him when he has breakfast, I will make sure that Afzal has a good breakfast at home before he leaves for school. But unknowingly to me, sometimes when I asked him what he did in school and how was his day, he would tell me that he had breakfast again in school. I know my Afzal has a good appetite but I was horrified when he told me, rather innocently, that he had sausage! So petrified Mummy will tell Afzal that sausage is not halal. And Afzal's reply puts me in cognitive disequilibrium when he says, "But Mummy, sausage is not meat." Oops. Oops. Oops. Guess I did not foresee this situation. My blunder is whenever I cook beef, I would tell him it's meat. So he must have been thinking, "Sausage is not meat because meat is that stuff my mummy cook, so sausage must be something else that I can eat." So Mummy has to tell Afzal that sausage is meat and all the other stuff that is meat like beef, burger, chicken, nuggets, etc etc and these stuff are not halal in school but if Afzal wants to eat sausage, beef, burger, chicken, nuggets, etc etc, Mummy will buy, make and pack them for Afzal. So I put him in cognitive disequilibrium by changing his meaning of things, but then again he will soon be in "equilibrium" once he makes sense of all these. We've also educated him about gelatin so he cannot just buy any pack of candies without checking the ingredients. However, when we do not want him to eat too many candies, we would just sneakily told him there's gelatin in it, more so for his health benefit. It works because he would put the pack back but he will soon pick another and asked us "Got gelatin?". So can't be all candies have gelatin, isn't it?

It's hard especially when he has a party in school and will be getting loads of chocolates and candies, and I cannot be telling Ms Smith, please check for the gelatin, that emulsifier or even that lecithin etc etc. Ms Smith has asked me whether she can just take out the pepperoni from the pizza for Afzal. I don't know whether there was any look of "horror" on my face, but I would just say rather calmly, "oh no...he's fine with just the chips and the biscuits." But kind Ms Smith thinks that it will not be fair to Afzal and goes to another class in search of a slice of cheese pizza.

We want to instil these important values in Afzal and at the same time we do not want him to miss out on the fun in school or be alienated from society at large. It will be challenging anywhere we are in the world but as long as there are people who are kind and respectful to our values, it will be much easier. I also believed that as long as we are sincere in this, God will help us to make it easier.

I have told Ms Smith about Ramadan and fasting, and she openly admitted that it was the first time she ever heard of such a thing. When we celebrated Eid or Aidilfitri or Hari Raya whatever the names you call it in different parts of the world, I gave her a bagful of goodies that she was so happy with it that she lets Afzal share his festival with the rest of the class. She knows that Afzal does not celebrate christmas and when the class was making christmas tree ornaments, Afzal made a similar looking ornament but it was a fridge magnet instead. When we asked Afzal why he did not make the tree ornament, he would just say, "because I don't celebrate christmas, I celebrate Hari Raya." Good job Afzal! And thank you Ms Smith!




Afzal-made-fridge-magnet