Spaghetti

I first ate spaghetti 14 years ago, when I was 8.

I was in Chicago (in Illinois in the United States of America) with my grandpa, my uncle and my uncle's colleague and we were looking for a nice place to eat. I was in the mood for pizza, so I suggested an Italian restaurant.

Eventually, we found one. I forgot the name of the street we were at, and I forgot the name of the restaurant we ended up in. But when they told me that their pizza oven was not working, my uncle suggested I try spaghetti bolognaise. And I did.

It was heaven in my mouth.

My taste buds were immensely enlightened by one of the greatest gifts of the kitchen - a madly delicious orgy of rich, springy pasta coupled with sweet-tangy tomato sauce, succulent minced beef and topped with generous amounts of tasty Parmesan cheese.

When I got back to Singapore, it was near the Muslim fasting month of Ramadhan. I asked my mom to make me spaghetti to break fast with, and my love affair with that lovely, lovely Italian dish continued.

Unknowingly, I had started a family tradition. Every fasting month, my mom or my maid would prepare spaghetti for us to break fast with. And when I ate it, my mouth would register pasta, tomato sauce, meat balls and Parmesan cheese, but my mind will register a cold Chicago night, when an 8-year-old boy discovered, in a random American Italian restaurant, one of the best things to ever happen to his stomach.