masterwordsmith-unplugged

Last night, I went for my friend's opening ceremony for her new restaurant in Permatang Pauh. It was a buffet dinner hosted at the restaurant. The drive was lovely as the sun was setting when I was driving across the Penang Bridge.

By the time I arrived at the restaurant, I saw a huge crowd in the service road area just in front of her restaurant. A horde of guests had gathered round the table of food and I was stunned. There was no system, no queue and everything seemed out of control.



Most helplessly, I looked around for my friend and her family but they were no where to be found. The restaurant was jam packed with guests and everyone's plate was piled with food, lots of food!
Moving slowly, my son and I finally decided to join the stampede. After getting our plates and chopsticks, we moved to the table and it was like a magic show.

Now you see it, now you don't.

The food that is.

As my son and I stood before the trays of food, it was almost a surrealistic experience to watch the food fly away together in turbo speed ladles and spoons.

After the initial shock, we joined the hunt and harvested very little, not that we wanted to eat much. We were still quite shell-shocked by the time we found a table. Soon after, I found my friend who is in her fourth month of her pregnancy. The poor thing was visibly upset.

I sauntered to where she was standing and asked, "Hey, what's wrong?"

"Do you know 40% of the people here are strangers?" she asked me.

"What?????????????????" was my horrified response.

"Not only are they gatecrashing but some had their families with them. Some came, took with them plates of food, went off and came back again to eat!! she cried.

She went on to say how a few even came by the back door and carted away a few crates of beer.

I stood there listening to her, shocked beyond words.

There was no way she could have crowd control or to drive away those gatecrashers as one can ever tell how they might retaliate later.

Even though she had invited less than eighty guests, she said the caterer told her that they had cooked enough for over 200 people!! In fact, for one of the dishes, the caterer said they had cooked 50 chickens!!! She was very upset as she knew that her genuine guests did not get to eat much.

Sadly, I advised her to tell the caterers to stop replenishing the food and to lock the back door. She did just that and we saw how those gatecrashers(she pointed them out to me) were like vultures waiting for the food to be replenished and when that did not happen, one by one, they went off.

As I walked around, I could see how many had plates of food before them, food which they could not finish eating. My heart broke when I saw how much was left behind. Imagine the wastage and imagine how many out there are in hunger because they cannot even afford one meal.

You know, I have been quite upset since last night. For the first time, I did not do a post for 6.15am like I always do. I had read so much about how people show their gluttony at open houses (never been to one) and had never seen until last night gluttony in action.

I love food. It is obvious. But that does not mean I pile loads on my plate and deprive others from their share and that does not mean a lot go to the bin just because I cannot finish what I had taken.

Honestly, I am very supportive of restaurants who give a notice with regards to wastage at buffet meals. At a recent buffet steamboat, my younger son, hubby and I only took one plate of stuff to be cooked at our table. Beside us was a couple - a very huge guy and his slim girlfriend. Believe me - he had plates and plates of food on the table and chairs and also an array of drinks on another chair.

Health is wealth. There is no point in gorging ourselves with food without exercising self-restraint. All we need to do is to think of others in need and of ourselves.

It does not take much to show a little bit of love and kindness and it should begin with ourselves!

Have a nice day everyone!