Still thinking about food.

Now that I am NOT on any special diet, my mind occasionally drifted to years long gone, my childhood days and the food I used to enjoy. The shophouse played an integral part for most of my childhood and there were memories there that I could never shake off. Never!  But that's a story for another day. I want to focus on happier thoughts today. Some people eat to live, I live to eat but that's an understatement.

Now the shophouse where I used to live is located opposite a school by a sliproad. Back then, traffic congestion is virtually unheard of.  Cars were fewer and most people walked to their destination.  I walked to school until someone bought me a rickety bicycle I named Rocky.  (That's because the tyres were punctured most of the time.) The shophouse was also home to some of the out-of-town apprentices. Where hungry mouths abound, food is always in demand. Hence, this became a good stop for food sellers.

Ice Balls. They were a big treat back then.  For something like 5 sens, you get shaved ice compressed into a syrupy ball. half red and half brown.  They fit nicely into the palm of your hands and you sucked the daylights out of them, that's what you do.

That brings us to the Ice-Cream Man. He carried his tubs of ice-cream in a metal box behind his bicycle.  A wooden contraption at the back of his bicycle provided an avenue for bonuses and rewards. (a Wheel of Fortune of sorts, if you will.)  It was a wooden disc, duly marked with nails standing in a circle on the outer rim.  A thin metal wire pointed towards this disc. For something like 10 sens, you get three scoops of ice-cream served on a cone plus a go at the Wheels of Fortune.  You turn the wheel by pushing one of the standing nails and watched carefully as the nails hit the thin metal wire to make that unmistakable sound.  When the wheel stops, your fortune is determined by the thin metal wire and where it pointed at.  If you're lucky, you get an additional scoop served on a miniature cone. Once, I saw someone win an entire cone which came with 3 scoops of ice-cream. The lucky devil!

Rice pudding, I think it was. These were steamed in shallow metal plates and served steaming hot with condiments I no longer remembered. The ones you find these days paled in comparison.

Funny that I should be thinking about food here and now.  My blood test is due first thing tomorrow morning.  If all goes well, I'm going through the second chemo treatment.