Gruel world
When I was sick, or pretended to be sick to get out of school, there was a 98% chance my lunch was going to be congee (pronounced with a soft ‘g’), or, as I knew it then, “porridge”. No one called congee “congee” in Malaysia, where I’m from, as English porridge just didn’t exist in our culinary world. So when I was a very naïve 16, my finger slid under the word “porridge” on an Auckland cafe menu, then rolled off my tongue with all the confidence of someone who knew exactly what they were ordering. Picture my face when I was presented with a sickly sweet bowl of lumpy oats instead. Ugh, I thought, fruit. I had until
