Just Another Day

Sitting at home trying to decide whether to sleep off the pain or just log about anything that comes to mind, I think the choice to that is pretty clear now. One thing though, please note that my blogging about it is not in asking for sympathy, but just to...well, blog lah!

A few years back, I could have easily called a number and asked whether a particular man is coming up to KL. Having been introduced to him by my arwah uncle, this man was a former Red Cross official (and a Hospital Dresser, I think), who practiced alternative medicine using only the humble cucumber to assist his patients. I never did know his full name, calling him abang Fuad only. He passed away in his sleep some 2 years ago at his away 'clinic' in Bandar Sri Damansara. His home clinic was in Parit Kurma, Muar, Johor; he was, a very gentle soul and loved to joke around, but he also posses knowledge, perhaps gained from his experience abroad whilst with the International Red Cross.

Whenever a patient seeks treatment from him, he would ask the patient to take his wudhu' first, if he is a Muslim. Then, he would ask the patient to lie on the treatment bed and normally, he would not even ask the problem, preferring to treat what he termed as 'the main cause of many illnesses' - the kidney. Off course, the kidney is not the cause, rather the foreign effluents that clog or mess it is.

Then, he would cut off both ends of a cucumber and ask the patient to recite surah Al-Fatehah. He would then alternate both tips of the cucumber, placing them on the kidney (and other areas as requested by the patients, including those with heart problems). After reciting several short verses, he would then cut open the used cucumber to reveal the effluents 'sucked out'. Sometimes, there's nothing at all but cucumber seedlings. Sometimes, there's a whitish substance. But most of the times, the substance is dark in colour. Often too, there would be small, black stones, somewhat like a coral. Those, Arwah Fuad said, are the kidney stones. And I witnessed several including 3 stones which he took out from the cucumber he used to treat me.
His advice to kidney stone patients: avoid commercially-raised chicken as the booster used leads to human health problems, and to drink lots of freshly-boiled barley juice. The barley, he said, helps to break down the stones. Perhaps, this goes along well together with Jaflam's and Alina's advice in their comment to the previous posting.

Anyway, with Arwah Fuad no longer able to assist now, I may have to find some other alternative treatment as I am not to keen on being hospitalised again. Not for anything though, the cost of hospital treatment can cause another form of bodily ailment.

So, sitting at home doing nothing but blogging and blog hopping, my emak decided to whip up one of my favourite dishes. Now, its been more than a year since she does any cooking. But I guess baking the sultana cookies recently, sort of put some enthusiasm back into her.
Its one of the few Melaka dish not well known to outsiders and is called 'Masak Cincuan'. Emak herself does not know the origin of the dish but its been with the family for several generations now. One just need some carrots, onions, chili, fresh tumeric, and fry them with oil. Off course, one would need to fry the fish first before frying it again with all those ingredients. For the fish itself, it would best to use either Ikan Tengiri or Merah.

Looking at the name of the dish (Cincuan), I would think it is Chinese in origin, perhaps, Szechuan. I wouldn't know, I have never tried that Chinese dish before.