It’s not often that I get invited over to a friend’s place for brunch on a weekday. It’s more common to meet friends and acquaintances for a quick lunch at crowded venues where it’s hard to hold a proper conversation.
Fatima, my friend and former colleague, reminded me that often deep friendships are forged in the workplace, where we spend most of our days and where we share the joys and pains of working life. As former colleagues, we have moved on but have stayed in touch. It’s not often that we get to meet, but we often connect through WhatsApp in a “Kakis Group” for close former colleagues. “Kaki” is a Singlish colloquial term for a buddy or friend. Three of us in the group are former editors and one is our former publisher. We certainly have a lot to talk about when we meet, so a quick lunch in a crowded place will not suffice. The solution is a home venue. The veranda is an ideal place for a leisurely lunch. We have had a few veranda lunches in the past.
Recently, Fatima wanted to host a brunch for the Kakis Group at her home. We were delighted because she is a good cook, but we didn’t want her to go through a lot of work for us, but she insisted that we didn’t bring any food for the brunch, so we brought dessert, coffee and chocolates.
Brunch was delightful! Roast chicken and lamb chops, salad and briyani rice. The chicken was very juicy and moist. Her secret was to stuff lemons in the chicken. Fatima asked for help to carve the chicken. Fortunately, that is my specialty. Angie was our birthday-cake-cutting expert in our former workplace, so she took care of the dessert. It was just like old times.
I told Fatima that I have a new obsession of posting photos of food on the blog. She laughed. I reminded Belinda of all the photos of her homecooked meals which made their way to the blog. We did have a good time remembering all the serious publications we worked on, the many titles, the crazy deadlines and publishing schedules.
It’s now time to enjoy a different kind of life with more focus on the home, family and friends. Fatima is proud to add home-making to her many roles and she does an excellent job of being a working professional and a homemaker. We have all lived abroad at some point, so we have acquired the necessary life-skills to manage on our own, but we have to admit that Fatima takes home-making skills to be new level!
Have a good week ahead.
By Chayo, HomSkil Editor 1, 16 November 2025
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