Eat Away The Monthly Blues

This piece was written by Anne, my co-editor. She's brilliant with words. A true wordsmith to tantalize you with her irreverent descriptions of life and food. I have always been in awe of her word wizardry! 

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Menstrual cramps. We women grimace and bear it . . . some more stoically than others, of course. For those who get it really bad, an addiction to that brilliant pink Panadol Menstrual tablet or the yellow-blue Ponstan capsule is perfectly understandable.

When Pre-Menstrual Syndrome (PMS) strikes, it can strike with a vengeance. Choose from a horrifying combination of irritability, insomnia, migranes, headaches, water retention, breast tenderness to downright agonising tummy cramps, and you can quite well understand why all those far from polite jokes about a PMS woman have more than a smidgen of truth in it.

If you feel that you've ingested more than your fair share of pain-killers and muscle-relaxants and you're ready for a non-chemical solution, read on. Take a peek at these Chinese system of food cures for menstrual disorders a friend swears by.

Irregular menstruation, vaginal discharge
120g lamb liver
90g chives
1 tablespoon peanut oil
light soya sauce

Cut chives and liver. Heat wok over high heat and pour oil in. Add chives and stir-fry. Add liver into wok and stir-fry again. Season with light soya sauce and cook for a few more seconds.


Excessive menstrual flow
30g black fungus
15g sugar

Fry black fungus over low heat without oil. Add one bowl of water and continue cooking. Add sugar as seasoning.
Note: This remedy is not recommended to treat excessive menstrual flow due to blood deficiency.


Menstrual pain of a cold nature
30g dried ginger
30g brown sugar
30g seeded red dates

Boil dried ginger in water together with brown sugar and red dates.


Menstrual pain due to blood coagulations (blood clots)
5g cinnamon twigs
15g hawthorn fruits
30g brown sugar
3 glasses of water

Boil cinnamon, hawthorn fruits and brown sugar in water until water is reduced by half. Add brown sugar and continue boiling for 2 minutes.


Irregular menstruation, vaginal bleeding of a hot nature
120g fresh celery
120g lotus roots
1 tablespoon peanut oil
salt

Scrape and slice celery and lotus root, place wok over high heat and pour in oil. When hot, add celery and lotus roots and stir-fry for five minutes before seasoning with salt.


Relief of suppression of menstruation
250g cuttlefish
40g fresh ginger
vegetable oil
salt

Fry cuttlefish in vegetable oil with thinly sliced ginger before seasoning with salt.


Headaches, stomach aches and general PMS symptoms
50g fresh parsley
3 cups water
1 egg
salt

Boil fresh parsley in 3 cups of water until water is reduced to 1 cup. Crack egg into boiling water (the egg will coagulate) before adding salt for seasoning.

Final words of wisdom from my au naturale friend (she makes her own soap, shampoo and skin-care products from items taken from the kitchen and fridge too!:)

"Be very persistent. Food cures show results only after about one week to a few months or even longer. If the cure proves beneficial, continue it throughout your life."

18th October 2000

Not For Me . . . Not Yet, Anyway!

I wrote this piece at 26. ;-) I got married a year after and I've been happily married for 10 years now. A fun, indignant piece on how a single girl views life. A lovely "walk" down memory lane. At least for me.

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It had to happen. It was bound to happen but I had been avoiding those secret glances, those looks that went "Well . . . well . . . well . . . " and those busybodies (a.k.a people you call relatives) like the plague.

Okay, so I am not growing any younger . . . but I'm no Ally McBeal either. And unlike Ally, I have no secret hankering to get hitched. Not now, and not in the next two months either. Which brings me back to the question that everyone's asking: "So . . .(this comes with the all-knowing pause) when ARE you getting married?"

It used to be so easy when I was younger. I define younger as maybe, say, 10 years ago when I was still in school and my dreams of boys were fueled by Judy Blume books. I was gradually weaned from Blume to Kathleen Woodiwiss whose swooning heroines always fell gracefully into the arms of the Hunk. The Hunk would be tall, dark and handsome and our idea of THE MAN was a man with a chestful of hair and that was our personal heaven.

But you should have heard the philosophy of my parents then. No, they would say, concentrate on your studies and study hard. Get a good education and then you can think about boys. So we were all goodie-two-shoes who dutifully went to school, mugged like hell and scored at exams. All because we had to carry out our filial duties before we 'did' other wayward things.

Then came university. People like me discovered a few things about university that Form Six teachers never mentioned. You could cause a riot in varsity if :
a) you left home for a far-off university (far-off means any university which was NOT in your home state) and
b) suddenly served with all this freedom to do as you please without having to answer to your parents, and, best of all
c) could date any guy you wished

Sadly, conditions a), b) and c) were valid if university was teeming with hunks. During my four-year course, the guys in my classes were not the type you could imagine French kissing, what more dating! And all of a sudden, parents begin dropping hints when you go home for the semester holidays. Do you have a boyfriend? Why don't you bring some nice boys home?

And finally when you do get a boyfriend, you see the relief written all over their faces. Fast forward a few years - you graduate, get a job, and still date the same guy. Now they start worrying - they worry, especially when your third cousin is getting married and she's younger than you or when the wedding invites start flying about during 'wedding season' and you attend weddings of people you know and the other people you don't know start asking about YOUR big day. That's when all the fun starts.

All of us get curious and uncomfy if one doesn't exhibit the normal desire to get married, especially if they are of suitable, marriageable age (this can be anywhere between 20 and 35).

Okay, I admit I am that type - the unconventional female whose marrying instincts haven't kicked in yet. Being dewy-eyed and swooning at the M word is as alien to me as eating sago worms in the jungles of Sarawak. And yes, I am proud to say that I am still holding out and haven't bowed to pressure.

Mum bugs me each time she sees me (about once every three months) and if her nagging doesn't work, she bugs Dad to 'advise' me. My aunts and uncles cannot understand why I refuse to get hitched. And I irritate half of them by answering, "Who? Me? But I'm only 26!" And they are flabbergasted - they have no reply to that!

But me, I'm not doing it yet because basically I enjoy my freedom. Besides, I'm NOT everybody . . .