Oogie

What are your 5 favourite things Noah?

“Bubble Tea!
Ice Cream!
Bubble Tea Ice Cream!”

Followed by an ever-changing list that usually includes cake, kueh, mochi and other sweet treats.

One day, Noah & I endeavour to make bubble tea pearls. How hard can it be? Seems like it’s the Asian equivalent of the lockdown sourdough baking craze. It’s a kill two (or three?) birds in one scenario - we get to pass the time quicker, Noah will have fun rolling the tapioca starch balls, and we get to have bubble tea! We find a recipe online. We don’t have the exact ingredients, but surely the sacred south-east asian palm sugar Gula Melaka can be subbed for a brown sugar slab? We are wrong - the texture of the dough seems incorrect, but we decide to push through anyway, adding more flour, repeatedly reheating the mixture, which is at times an oobleck-y mess and at others a dry shaggy lump - pretty much making it up as we go.

There is flour everywhere. Dough bits here and there.

Finally after some persistence and trial & error, we arrive at a reasonable texture for the tapioca balls. The rolling process is in full swing and we have to work quickly. Half way through, Noah declares out loud that he’s tired.

“Do you want to roll some more?”

“No. It’s hard work.” He says emphatically.

“Well, sometimes good things take time to make and it’s hard work.” I say - looking at Krystin, both of us acknowledging with a smile with reference to our relationship & marriage.

“Okayyyyyyyy.” Noah says reluctantly, and carries on squashing the dough. Krystin & I laugh to ourselves, tres amused at his ability to now incorporate tone into his everyday speech.

After cooking the tapioca pearls, we pour our very own version of the popular brown sugar fresh milk boba, with Gula Melaka syrup instead. To our surprise, the pearls are deliciously chewy and surpass all our initial expectations, especially since nothing had gone according to the recipe. Noah excitedly exclaims “oogie!” - a term he has come up with to describe anything wonderful to eat and squidgy-soft inside.

Another worthwhile thing about the lockdown is that it has forced us to slow down and appreciate the hard work that goes into some of our everyday delights that we often take for granted - every bite is sweeter, more wonderful and of course, the most oogie.

Photograph on a Pentax 67 with 105mm f2.4 on Portra 400.
Double walled bear cup from Iuiga here.