A Tiger In The Kitchen

Breakfast in Singapore

 

Now that the temperature is down to the 50s again in New York, all I can think about is breakfast in Singapore.

I can practically smell the curries. And the tameepok prawn and pork noodles topped with sliced, super-hot chilis. And the starchy "carrot cake" (actually made of radishes) with heaps of crimson chili paste mixed in. And the...

File this under the "you always want what you can't have" category: growing up in Singapore, I coveted big American breakfasts. Those pictures of Grand Slams at Denny's restaurants showing plates of towering pancakes, bacon and sunny-looking eggs would inspire great yearning in my stomach.

And yet the moment I set foot in the land of massive, sausage-and-pancake breakfasts, all I could think of was the roti pratas and tameepoks I'd left behind.

Ruth Reichl Goes Undercover

My new favorite video, featuring Gourmet editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl channeling Amy Winehouse, Mickey Rourke and more...

If Chewing Gum Makes You Smarter ...

 

In my 15 years in the U.S., I've found that Americans who discover I'm from Singapore often have the same initial questions: Do they really cane people? Is Singapore math really that good? So, you really can't chew gum there?

The answers are, yes, yes and not really.

(Not that I'm endorsing it but, one could hypothetically bring gum into Singapore from elsewhere. I suspect the Customs dogs aren't exactly trained to suss out Doublemint contraband, after all.)  

Recently, however, the Los Angeles Times reported a finding that could just make a case for legalizing Dubble Bubble in my home country.

A Fashion Critic's Bacon-Fat Cookies

 

High-end fashion and bacon fat.

I couldn't think of two things more disparate and yet, flipping through the pages of the New York Times a few years ago, there it was: Fashion critic Cathy Horyn's paean to a recipe for Swedish ginger cookies made with bacon grease that she has "cherished for years."

My first reaction: Be still my beating heart, both figuratively and, quite possibly, literally. The cookie seemed like an insane, artery-clogging idea. The first ingredient listed, after all, was "3/4 cup bacon fat, cooled (from 1 1/2 to 2 pounds Oscar Mayer bacon)."

Two pounds of bacon? Cathy was officially my new hero.

Bacon Fat on a Summery Saturday

What to do with close to 3/4 cup of bacon fat? Why, bake cookies, of course.

More later ...

                                                                          

Of "Heaty" and "Cooling" Soups

Soup was my nemesis.

It was inescapable at the dinner table in my Singapore home. And the breakfast table, too, for that matter. And, sometimes, if Mum thought I looked too "heaty" (which, sadly, is hardly the saucy condition that you might imagine) and needed something with yin in it to "cool" me down, there it was at lunch as well.

A college friend likes to recall the column by Singapore humorist Colin Goh where he notes, “If Harry Potter went to school in Singapore he’d learn in potions class that there are two kinds of potions: heaty and cooling.”

You may laugh. But it's true -- Singaporeans take these piping-hot brews very seriously. These broths featuring pork or chicken with a mish-mash of vegetables and Chinese herbs are generally concocted with the idea that they can solve some medical problem you have.

Sore throat? Impotence? That gunshot wound in your tush? No problem -- just take two bowls of this and call your Mum in the morning.

Given that some of these herbs actually resembled wizened fingers or a tangle of human hair and smelled like my grandmother's socks, however, I wasn't too crazy about them.

But it's funny how you suddenly crave the thing that you loathe as a child once you know it's no longer there at your elbows, just waiting for you to push it away.

Walking through Chinatown with chef Simpson recently, we stumbled upon a basket of massive, beige root vegetables. My eyes brightened, I practically ran toward the basket, grabbing a particularly lengthy, sturdy one, speechless with excitement as I cradled it.

It had never struck me up until that very moment that this tuber bore an uncanny resemblance to a sex toy.

The Spice Market Epiphany

Fear is my new friend.

He sat down next to me at a Singaporean cooking demonstration at Spice Market in New York City Friday afternoon and I have not been able to shake him off since.

Watching Singapore food TV host KF Seetoh whip up dishes like harjeong gai, chicken wings slathered in a thick shrimp sauce and then deep-fried, and laksa, a spicy curry noodle soup involving what seemed to be something like 7,000 ingredients, with Spice Market owner Jean-Georges Vongerichten's highly skilled battalion of chefs behind him prepping Southeast Asian noodles and frying up chicken, I suddenly began to feel nervous as I thought of the nine months ahead of me.

I had recently decided to spend chunks of the next year eating and cooking my way around my native Singapore. The hope is to learn enough to be able to bring my family together at next year's Chinese New Year for a meal cooked by me -- the Americanized, prodigal daughter who never earned her stripes in the kitchen as many proper Singaporean teenage girls do. I don't even want to think of the "loss of face" it is to my parents that I'm now more adept at whipping together meat loaf than fried rice. (And no, it does not help that my meat loaf is pretty darn good -- if I do say so myself.)

I had thought this quest would be pretty straightforward, perhaps even possibly a piece of cake. But watching Seetoh produce an entire tray of tiny bowls filled with chopped up ingredients just to make char kway teow, a basic but delicious fried noodle dish that I had completely taken for granted up until this point, I started to think, "Holy (something a nice Singaporean girl wouldn't say)! That looks like a heckuva pain in the (something else a nice Singaporean girl wouldn't say)!"

Naeem Khan's Entertaining Tips

I discovered something recently when interviewing eveningwear designer Naeem Khan for a Wall Street Journal Tricks of the Trade column on how he throws dinner parties.

I realized: I've been a complete clod all these years.

Hearing Naeem talk about the importance of plating and presentation as appetite inducers, noting that he doesn't like to serve several things on the same plate as it's a "nightmare," made me think of my own parties. While the designer prefers to serve small portions on over-sized plates so the dish frames the food nicely, my presentations have been known to look like this ...    

                                                                            

... which, I suspect, would qualify in Naeem's book as a "nightmare."

Granted, that picture was from Thanksgiving, a meal that's often all about more, not less. But still, his advice lit a fire under my tush to step it up in the presentation department. The man designs for Beyonce and Eva Longoria, after all, so he knows a thing or two about how things should look.

A Sicilian Summer Lunch: A Cure for April Winter Blues

This morning, I woke up fantasizing about the glorious January day in New York City a few years ago when it was 70 degrees and out came the open-toed heels.

I know one isn't supposed to be so gauche as to go bonkers over wintry days that are insanely warm, given that worrisome bit about "global warming" and all that. But it's mid-April in New York, guys. And it's 40-something degrees out today. It just will not get warm.

This started me thinking about a perfect summer lunch I had last year in Sicily. It all began with a morning trip to the historic La Vucciria market in Palermo, where for hundreds of years, fishermen and farmers have brought their freshest produce and catches of the day.

                                                                           

The place was a seafood-lover's heaven. Massive pesce spada (swordfish) aside, vendors sold squid, slender, silvery fish, oysters the size of your fist.

Cheers! (A Navel-Gazing Moment)

Well, it's been exactly one week since I inadvertently went live with this blog by posting something and then forgetting that I'd set it up so a notification would go out on Twitter whenever there was a new post. The next thing I knew, emails from new readers started to come in.

Doh.

There's nothing like getting shoved into something when you're not quite ready -- but, a week later, hey, we're still alive and kicking!

Big thanks to some early supporters: Liberty London Girl, who did a wonderful item on A Tiger in the Kitchen mere moments after we went live. Jewelry designer Wendy Brandes of the sassy Wendy Brandes Jewelry blog, who totally nagged me to start this blog and continues to teach me oodles about blogging. The Asian American Journalists Association, which did an item on my book deal with Hyperion that also linked to this blog.

Eat Me Daily blogged about the book deal as well, following a nice item about it in Women's Wear Daily.

Here's to many more weeks of cooking, eating and waxing lyrical about it all. Thanks to all of you -- from Sydney to Salem, Oregon -- for checking in so far.

And ... the navel-gazing moment ends. Santé!