It all began when my mother told our family, "Do you guys wanna sell Satay?"
No response was given until dad and I decided to give it a try. After all, it is not a bad idea to start a family business since I resigned my job.
14th Dec 2013, Saturday, 7pm.
We arrived the cafe where we met our Satay sifu (aka master) and his wife. Friendly couples who welcomed anyone to visit their stall.
There is a collective perception among the Chinese which sounds like this,
"Don't teach your apprentice EVERYTHING you know!"
Personally, I don't think my sifu did hide anything from us because he actually began his tutorial from A to Z: preparing furnace, starting fire, preparing satay, barbecue technique, managing fire...to storing charcoal.
No doubt, it is a challenge for me and my father who is not good at barbecue. However, after several trial (ops, sorry for those who ate my trial sticks...), sifu remarked that I was 70% ready to begin our business.
Hmm, thank God that I was in scout before for those skills you learned back then prove to be very useful at some point in your life...
Throughout the 5 hours practice, I managed to experience some values which is pretty much not related physically to satay grilling,
Be humble. Standing before a satay expert who came up with Tomyam flavor, I felt fortunate to learn from him and how to lower myself before I comment my own points. This gave me an impact because it also reminded me why I was having hard time to communicate with previous board of committee of my previous workplace.
Be mindful. Different meats take different time to be able to serve for customers. On top of that, I have to manage the fire in furnace so that it is neither too strong or too weak for grilling. Blazing fire might scorch the satay while weak fire might keep your customer waiting which might trigger cancelled order. Keeping myself to stay focus and aware of the surrounding, is a good sensory processing in my brain.
Be thankful. I never know how many customer will I get in a day. I tried my best to maintain the quality of satay but that does not mean everyone will queue up for satay. Furthermore, I hardly see anyone ordered satay for main meal. I learned to surrender myself to God while I do my best. Do my best while God do the rest.
Interested to try our satay?
We shall begin on this coming Friday evening, 20th Dec 2013 at a kopitiam (cafe) Lebuh Presgrave, Penang island. Hope to see you soon!
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