When A Soccer Team Dropped For Lunch

The much-awaited Fifa World Cup will soon descend upon us once again, for one whole month from June 11.

This time around, I am no longer in the loop as I once was, which is just as well, considering my penchant for cheering 11 sweaty men chasing after one ball has diminished over time.

Things may seem to have changed but on the contrary, not quite, for I have been sufficiently trained to ensure a continuous flow of steaming nescafe tarik, chilled cordial, packets of peanuts, crisps, cookies, pastries and the odd kuih while the men in my life strive to bring the roof down with every goal.

And if the games are played between midnight and dawn, rest assured I won't be losing out on my sleep. Pak Abu and company can wake the dead with their cheering for whatever it is worth; I, for one, shall slumber on.

It's this approaching bola season that propels my thoughts down memory lane to that unforgettable, hard-to-live-down day in 1978 (or was it 1979, I can't quite recall exactly).

On that day in question, the entire Kedah state soccer team descended upon my humble abode in Kuantan for lunch, providing one of the most nerve-wrecking moments in my life.

There I was, a young wife of 24 with two toddlers age three and one, with neither maid nor helper, whose expertise in the kitchen then had not extended beyond recipes copied from my grandmother's recipe book.

To receive a phone call giving me a three-hour lead time before 15 hungry men turned up at my doorsteps for food was nothing short of frightening.

I still shudder each time I think about that eventful day; that it had to happen to me, a kitchen klutz if ever there was one, someone who disliked cooking so much that she would rather feed on buttered bread for all her meals.

That day started well enough; I woke up in tandem with the kids and attended to their needs whilst their father prepared for office, after which I got started with housework. Halfway through, the phone rang.

It was the other half, telling me that the Kedah soccer team was in town for a match and that his uncle, Pak Su Othman, an official with the team, had asked whether he could drop by for lunch. [Pak Su Seman has since passed away].

I liked diminutive Pak Su; he was a gregarious man who never failed to bring laughter whenever he was around. Pak Su was married to Chu Khatijah, the only sibling of my late father-in-law, Tan Sri Abdul Rahman Hashim.

Since the family lived in Alor Star, we saw them only a couple of times in a year, thus I was only too glad to have Pak Su over.

And I knew Pak Su well enough not to worry about what to feed him. Like many regular kampung folks, he wasn't fussy and was easy to get along with. I knew there were foodstuff in the fridge that I could put together in a jiffy for him.

Just as I was getting comfortable with my thought, the ex added, ever so smoothly: "Oh, by the way, I have also extended the lunch invitation to the rest of the team."

That truly caught me off-guard. Flabbergasted, all I could muster was a shocked "Haaaaaa....???"

The idea of cooking for 15 football players and officials single-handedly within three hours was too much to comprehend that I did the only thing I could think of; I sat down on the sofa and bawled my eyes out.

Had it happened today, it wouldn't have been so unnerving. One could immediately make a beeline for a nearby restaurant and buy takeaway lauks. Just cook rice and all's done.

Or if there's enough fresh food in the fridge, just reach out for all those Brahim or Adabi ready-to-cook packets and no one would be any wiser.

But this was Kuantan in the late 1970s; Brahim's scope had not gone beyond producing army rations whilst Adabi was still a college, not a food manufacturer.

To be fair, the ex left his office in double-quick time to shop for additional grocery, and brought home enough fresh produce for me to get started.

On my part, the tears hardly dried when I turned the pages of my recipe book, looking for whatever that I could offer to the team without embarrassing the family.

I remember making fish curry, fried chicken, mixed vegetables, sambal belacan and ulam. And so they came, all 15 of them, cleaned my cooking good, made the appropriate appreciative noises, and went. They looked happy enough.

I thanked God that everything went well. The Good Lord, in His ultimate wisdom, knew the insufferable pain I was and how much I had bitched about not liking to cook. So He sent a football team for me to feed.

A real padan muka moment that was. Such divine retribution...!