We (my wife and 11-year-old son Ryan) woke up this morning finding a lot of time on our hands. It wasn’t the usual Sunday morning routine to rush and attend the 10:00AM church service. We attended service the previous evening.

This weekend’s cookout was a long awaited one. I had planned it for more than a month. It started with Ee Ching Wah telling me about his preaching engagement on July 24 (Ee is not exactly clergy. He runs a construction company and is also the executive director of an education concern. So in every sense of the word, he’s a layman preacher.) He also told me about his church congregating in one of the ballrooms in the Sri Damansara Club (which is only a stone’s throw away from where I live) for Sunday morning service. So … I thought, why not hear him preach in the morning (I’ve been wanting to hear him preach for a while now) and then proceed on to his house for the cookout in the afternoon - kill two birds with one stone-lah.

I’ve known C W Woo or Chee Wai (more commonly known as among friends) for 35 years … yes, that long. We have known each other since Standard 1 in Malacca’s Banda Hilir English School. Which is why having him to kick off The Weekend Chef is so special. Chee Wai’s culinary skills are no big secret - at least not among his friends and on the pages of The Weekend Chef. He has cooked for his close friends and church mates alike for a long time now. And the fact that he is still invited to cook special meals for special occasions in their homes bears testimony to his legendary gastronomic ability.