My earliest memory of eating vegetables involves my mother chasing me around the living room balancing a plateful of stir-fried spinach and rice in one hand, and desperately trying to shove dinner spoonful-by-spoonful past my uncooperative lips with the other. I must admit I’ve come a...
Choose love. These two simple words have been on my mind since they popped out at me from a friend’s Facebook post a few weeks ago. She was recapping her past year and she ended her reflection with “When in doubt, choose love.” They could mean many...
When I was growing up, fragrant yellow coconut rice was right at home sitting next to the roast beef and/or honey-baked ham during Christmas dinner. Every year, my mum would make nasi tumpeng, yellow coconut rice served with a smorgasbord of Indonesian dishes. Come to think...
One of the most common questions I get asked about my cookbook is: “Which one’s your grandma?” My sad reply: “She’s not in there.” I didn’t really know either of my grandmothers. My paternal grandmother, whom I called Oma, (I wrote about her in this post) lived...
There’s rice pudding and then there’s rice pudding. Or more precisely, my rice pudding: “my” being yours, mine, or Uncle Bob’s. Ask just about anyone and you’ll probably get an earful about a “secret” ingredient, or a tale inextricably linked to the memory of their childhood (or perhaps...
As un-American as it makes me sound, I never make chili con carne, or chili for short. In fact, I’ve probably eaten only 4 or 5 bowls of it in my lifetime. I know, I'm ashamed to say it. To me, chili refers to the red...
