The Girl in Pajamas

“My mother always used to say: The older you get, the better you get, unless you’re a banana.”

—Rose (Betty White), The Golden Girls

On Saturday morning, I woke up with an exciting dinner plan. I was going to cook an exotic Persian dish of steamed fish marinated in a spicy, herby coconut sauce, wrapped in banana leaves.

I scoured through my fridge and pantry for the necessary ingredients. Frozen coconut – check; coriander leaves – check; mint, growing in the garden ready for harvest – check; chillies – check; garlic – check; turmeric – check; lemon, salt and pepper – check, check and check! Now I only had to get one more thing from the grocery stores, the star of this show, the banana leaves!

Armed with Google Maps and a husband, I set off from my house with the addresses of all Asian grocery stores in the vicinity where, Google swore, shoppers had seen banana leaves.

In hindsight, the most efficient and practical way would have been to call the stores beforehand to confirm and that tiny part of my logical brain did suggest it. However, my body, coursing with unusually high levels of dopamine, serotonin and over-confidence from my newly-started routine of daily 40 minute walks all week long, promptly stamped down this thought.

Of course they’d have a stock! Why wouldn’t they!?

By the second unsuccessful Asian grocery visit, the stinky smell of defeat began wafting over from the shelves of withering vegetables.

Denial.

I told myself, surely, I’ve been searching in the wrong places. Which cuisine would use banana leaves most frequently? I dug deep in recesses of my memory. A vague lunch in a shabby restaurant in an industrial area with a Singaporean friend came to mind. She was part-Sri Lankan. I immediately searched for the nearest Sri Lankan grocery store. The closest was 20 minutes away. I called, they didn’t answer, which should have been hint enough from the universe but did I listen? No sir, I did not! As we drove through rundown suburbs towards our next destination, I summoned a mock enthusiasm to justify my mulishness by remarking at how this doubles as a sightseeing ride into areas unknown. “Not really,” came my husband’s clipped response, nipping my self-deception right in the bud!

Anger.

“I’m sorry, we are fresh out of stock,” said the young cashier. I traipsed out of there to find my husband with a smug look on his face. He didn’t want to have fish for dinner and he had said as much earlier. He was teasing me of course and he meant well. Why else would he begrudgingly allow himself to be dragged along in this fruitless expedition? But what came out of my mouth was, “This is exactly why I can’t find the damn thing! Because you don’t want me to.” As if every bad thing in the world was somehow magically conceived by the will of his thoughts. Even as the words left my mouth, a tiny voice of logic pleaded with my boorish self to see reason. But by this point, however, my testosterone levels had escalated to such a level that if someone had told me that World War Two, poverty and global warming were all my husband’s fault, I would have believed them!

Bargaining.

As we drove along in silence on our way back home, my husband out of the goodness of his heart (and with the hope of getting home in one piece) offered we check one more place. By this time, I had lost all hope of finding the banana leaves but we still made that one last stop. Now at this point, dear reader, if you think there was a leafy green light at the end of my dark obsessive tunnel, then you’d be wrong! Once again, we left empty handed but not before having a well deserved coffee break. As I sipped on my refreshing glass of white iced chocolate, I reread my recipe and noted the alternative option of using aluminium foil. But then I recalled one of our neighbours a street away had banana trees in their front yard and considered just maybe, I could convince them to spare me a stalk!

Depression.

On our way home, we drove past said neighbour, my eyes taking in the leafy green foliage of banana trees. I thought of how close they were, how reachable yet so far. I had only to stop my car, get off, ring their doorbell, and present my request to them like a rambling madwoman! With each revolution of my car tyres, I saw the beautiful plants go further and further away from my reach until they were just a blip in the rear view mirror. By the time we reached home, the grief of the end of my culinary ambitions of the day had struck so deep I could no longer function. So I took a nap.

Acceptance.

When I awoke, the stupidity of everything I was trying to achieve today was brought upon me in a scurry of self-realisation! I was exhausted and at this point, all I cared for was food whether it was cooked in banana leaves or not. With a sigh of indifference and thankfully with my remaining senses, I let go of the recipe altogether and continued with my tried and tested quick-fix fried fish!

By the time I finished dinner and cleaned up, I thought about how today could have been if I hadn’t been so wilful. Perhaps I could have enjoyed a nice cup of tea lounged up in front of the telly spending my day off work as one should in the calm waters of contentment. Instead, I vainly went out on a pointless surf on the waves of aspirations dragging my husband and both our peace of mind with me.

You’d think that by now I’d have learnt my lesson of when to let something go. And I will I promise! But right after I go through this other list of grocery shop list next weekend!

Till next time,

The melodramatic Girl in Pajamas 👩🏻‍🦱