Recently, to the surprise of my family, I cooked dinner. Spaghetti, to be exact. Usually that’s no mean feat, except that I’m Western and my family is not. Other than my Malaysian wife, who had lived in the US for seven years, they had never heard of spaghetti.

As I prepared the sauce, my 75-year-old mother-in-law and 14-year-old nephew hovered nearby, casting doubtful glances my way. With the sauce simmering and the kitchen filled with spicy aromas of oregano, basil and rich tomato paste, my mother-in-law started to prepare the rice.

“What are you doing?” I asked her in my best broken Malay. “I’m cooking for everyone.”

She gave me and the sauce, or kuah as she called it, a dubious look. In an attempt to convince her that there was more to spaghetti than sauce, I showed her the package of uncooked pasta.

Unimpressed, she tried to read the package; she even tried her hand at English: “Spa-het-e.”

“Spaghetti,” I corrected, then repeated it slowly to suggest there was a lot more to its mysterious name than met the eye. Back when I was growing up in Pennsylvania, whenever it was announced that spaghetti was ready, my elder siblings and I would drop whatever we were playing with at the time and head for the side door. (It wasn’t until we were adults, and presumably less filthy, that we were allowed to use the front door.) Once inside, we would dash for the dining room, only to be detoured to the bathroom to wash away some of the dirt, before making a bee-line back to the food, with me trailing behind, calling out, “Pas-get-ti! Pas-get-ti!” (Back then I also had a little trouble pronouncing the word.)

I also told my mother-in-law about the garlic bread that I was planning to make.

“Roti?” She had one eyebrow raised, sceptically.

“It’s a lot better than bread,” I assured her. She shrugged, and with a huge dose of reluctance, put the rice away – for now.

Once the table was set and the dinner ready (although I forgot to make the salad), I called everyone in.

I called them a second time.

“At least try it,” I pleaded, subtly twisting their arms by threatening to withhold dessert. (I had forgotten that, too, but why spoil my bluff?)

My wife took one look at the serving and said, “You should have let them help themselves – they’ll never eat all that.”

“If I had let them help themselves, they wouldn’t have taken any,” I replied. “Besides, I only gave them half portions. If they give it a chance, I’m sure they’ll like it.”

My wife, who had listened patiently, reminded me about the dinner she had cooked for my family back in the States. My siblings had turned their noses up at it, then, for the family’s sake (I would have disowned them if they hadn’t) politely ate less than a third of it before feigning excuses about forgotten appointments and dashing off – in my car – to the nearest McDonald’s. (I interrogated them later when I found some leftover French fries in the back seat.)

“That was different,” I told my wife. What could I say, short of calling them a pack of uneducated baboons who were raised on junk food and TV dinners?

Since no-one was eating, including my wife, I figured they were all waiting for me, to see if I would die on the spot. So I dug in. Meanwhile, my nephew picked at the meat sauce and shifted around the noodles to make it look like he had eaten some. But I was on to him. I had mastered that art way before he was born, and still utilise the skill whenever the less-than-ideal meal is served.

When my mother-in-law finally tried some, so did he.

“Sedap (Delicious)?” I asked her.

“Sedap juga (OK),” she replied. “Tapi masam (But sour).”

She added some salt. So did my nephew. “Dan tawar (and bland),” she said, then added more salt. So did my nephew, who didn’t have to say a word because I could gauge his reaction from the sour and bland faces he was making.

My mother-in-law’s last translatable comment was, “And it tastes of too much tomatoes!”

“It’s supposed to taste like tomatoes,” my wife explained, coming to my defence. (I had defended her cooking back in the US, and she had even included mushrooms in her dish and even I don’t like mushrooms.)

Slowly they ate the spaghetti, adding a dash of salt now and then to suit their palates.

The meal wasn’t a total disaster. They did finish their plates, unlike my American siblings. And they didn’t rush out to the nearest McDonald’s in my car either. (Fortunately, my mother- in-law doesn’t drive.) And the last time I checked, they were still alive.

Which is good, because tonight I’m planning to surprise them with my famous beef stew.

Just in case, I bought plenty of extra salt.