The Skeptical Optimist

There’s nothing like a good meal - whether it’s something someone has lovingly cooked for you or whether you enjoy pottering around the kitchen and fixing something exactly the way you want it. One of my favourite things to cook is softly scrambled eggs with just a bit of butter, maybe some goat cheese and herbs or a splash of full cream milk. I don’t cook many things better than my Italian mother-in-law, but this is one of them.

Speaking of Italian food - I just filmed another episode of this segment I’m producing and presenting called “Off the Menu”. For this segment I interviewed Chef Giacomo Gallina who has just set up a new restaurant called ‘Otto’ in the Red Dot Building in Singapore. Giacomo is pretty much the “godfather” of Italian chefs based in Singapore, having mentored some pretty big names behind the well established Italian restaurants here. He was a really nice, laidback kind of chef with sure, deft touch to his cooking.

We also had a chance to do a tasting!

I have to say, I’m also a sucker for a really good chocolate molten cake - as cliched as that may be. But Giacomo also makes a mean squid ink pasta and perfectly cooked asparagus with a rich and decadent cheese sauce.

Off the Menu is not just about food though - in fact it’s not really about the food per se but the stories and ideas behind the dishes and cooking styles. Over the past few months, I’ve had a chance to interview some culinary greats like Pierre Herme and Anne Sophie Pic (only woman in France to get 3 michelin stars) - and some homegrown self taught cooks like Willin Low. Plus I got to talk to a young but determined chef behind one of my favourite restaurants in Singapore - Sage. Jusman So is a man who really values honesty, especially in cooking and if you head down to his restaurant on Mohamed Sultan road you’ll see what I mean.

Do tune in to the segment - it’s on Tuesdays during Primetime Morning at 9.20am Singapore time. Otherwise, you can always head down to the website to catch the episode you missed. I hope you have as much fun watching it as I did filming it!

Tags: chefs, cooking, eating, good food, interviews

Kermit was right - it’s not easy being green. And before you think I mean that in some flippant way, let me assure you that I’m dead serious about it. When I first met my husband in the States, he was vegan and as an omnivorous Chinese woman in her early 20s, I thought he was quirky, slightly mad and definitely a little bit too committed to the cause. Some 7 to 8 years later, he’s now living in Singapore with me and he’s a less than reluctant omnivore. Definitely, it’s my fault - from the ricotta cheese and gelato in Italy to the scallop in New Orleans - he says watching me eat was just too much! Plus my mother-in-law is an amazing cook, and my father-in-law likes to barbecue! mmmm… sausages!

But recently, I’ve been giving some serious thought to becoming at least part time vegetarian (yes, that term exists!) and maybe even extending this to my boys… This is really difficult, because it’s one thing become vegetarian yourself but it’s another thing figuring out how to give two energetic growing toddlers enough protein, calcium and nutrients.

Plus, I really do love meat! I’m not a bleeding heart vegetarian, I believe in the circle of life philosophy - but with responsibility and humanity. So that means that while I don’t think it’s unethical to kill a cow, fish, chicken, pig, etc to eat it (although I respect the beliefs of the ethical or religious vegetarians)- I do believe that it’s completely unethical to industrially farm these animals and subject them to cruel and unusual forms of housing and death. Industrially raised pigs, cattle and poultry live in abysmal conditions, often overcrowded, overfed and injected with antibiotics to prevent diseases that are a result from these conditions.

Sticking to this view, it makes it really hard to eat meat unless it’s free range and organic, something that’s almost non-existent in Singapore unless it’s for a very high price, which basically makes it untenable. Honestly, I can’t afford to pay $60 for a piece of grass fed steak and shouldn’t have to. Which makes the alternative? Well, going green in the most fundamental sense.

To add to that, there’s the environmental imperative. Recently I interviewed a Geography professor who had done extensive research into lifestock and he confirmed my suspicion that one of the easiest ways for you to reduce your carbon footprint is not just to ditch that fuel guzzler of a car, switch off the lights and airconditioning unit and use less plastic - it’s actually to eat less meat. Cattle produce the most greenhouse gases! More than cars apparently… and that’s not taking into account their waste which pollutes waterways. Plus, they actually use up arable land that could be used to grow grain and vegetables to feed parts of the world populations that isn’t getting enough food. It’s quite a serious situation.

But how to run on this campaign in a food loving, food crazy country? No one is going to be able to tell you not to eat that plate of ba chor mee, black angus steak, panfried foie gras, pork knuckle or ba kwa. Not to mention mutton soup, ayam penyet and beef rendang. There would be riots! And don’t think that bento box of sushi is immune too, research shows overfishing could lead to a total depletion of oceanic fish in twenty years or so. So it’s quite a conundrum and really sometimes thinking like this can make your head swim, because how are one person or one family’s choices going to make a difference in a situation that seems like it’s headed to the dogs anyway? A more appropriate response might be: eat all the foie gras that you can right now because it’s all going to pot anyway, and you might not be able to afford it 10 years from now!

Right.

So in my household we are making simple decisions - red meat once a month, chicken once a week, farm raised fish or seafood twice a week and vegetarian pasta dishes or stews and stirfries with rice the rest of the time with added protein from cheese (not completely innocent I know, but hey my kids are under 5 and their bones are growing), eggs, tofu, lentils, beans and chickpeas.

It’s not an ideal situation, but it’s working for me. Although when we eat out at the hawker centre we do eat the normal wanton mee and chicken rice.

Still I’ve discovered old dishes that I used to cook to impress my once vegan husband, drawing out of the veggie cookbooks I bought for romance. It’s an uphill struggle, I’ll admit, I’m a sausage-bacon-lobster-foie gras-steak-otoro sushi-hamburger kind of girl… but hey, it’s not just the health of the planet and the humane treatment of animals - it’s after all also our health as well. Still, I have to admit, once a month we’ll go on a date without the kids and just have a steak or hamburger or plate of wonderfully expensive sashimi. After all, you only live once! What do you think?

Tags: feeding children, good food, omnivorism, vegetarianism

I had the honour of meeting pianist Emanuel Ax for an interview last week. Ax is best known here for his extensive collaborations with the cellist Yoyo Ma, but really he’s a virtuoso player in his own right, considered to be one of the great pianists of his generation.

The one thing that struck me was how humble he was… one of the things he said was that maybe he stuck to piano because he didn’t have any other options open to him! But really, we’re lucky that he did stick it out with the piano - his playing easily ranks among the top 5 of the classical pianists that I’ve heard live. Listening to his play Chopin in the Esplanade Concert Hall was a magical and sometimes infuriating experience. Magical because of his technical skill, control, expressiveness and vivacity - and infuriating because as a lapsed pianist… I recognise how dastardly difficult Chopin can be and how much practice and innate talent you need to pull it off in a concert setting. “Manny”, as his friends call him, the down to earth New Yorker with a self-professed love of Shanghai dumplings is transformed to pianist extraordinaire Emanuel Ax when he sets his fingers down on the ivories. He made the complex runs in the piano concerto sound sublime, effortless, as if his hands were simply floating above the keys and willing them into beauty with some telekinetic power. Plus, he was generous with the encores too, playing an additional nocturne and waltz.

The feeling you get when you listen to a grand master like this is, oh, this is how Chopin is supposed to sound like - not the tinkling and banging that you suffered through during piano lessons - this almost other worldly lyricism and breathtaking momentum, this is what the composer meant when he was setting these notes down on the manuscript. It’s almost like getting a glimpse of a perfection beyond mere mortality.

Tags: classical music, emanuel ax, pianists

One of the best things about the job is getting to meet all kinds of interesting people and having the chance to sit down and have a proper conversation with them… well for at least 10 to 15 minutes. There’s no other way to meet the writers, musicians, artists, architects, decision-makers and really sort of put them to the test with your questions. In a way it makes you immune to the effects of celebrity because you realise that hey, famous people are just people after all with their quirks and idiosyncrasies and good/bad camera sides!

But a couple of times a year you still do get all groupie-ish and weak-kneed at the prospect of interviewing someone truly great. This year it’s already happened twice for me… the first was interviewing Sophia Loren. She’s truly larger than life (in more ways than one…) and wonderfully statuesque and regal. If the Italians still had a queen, she would definitely be in contention for royalty.

But while it was really thrilling just to be in the same room as the legendary screen siren, it was Sonny Rollins who really made me feel both charmed and a little awed by his humility and his grace. Sonny is a Harlem born saxophone player who is 78 this year and has played with a list of jazz’s who’s who, including Coltrane, Davis, Monk, Hawkins, Powell… etc. I love jazz, but I’m not a real expert - still Sonny’s playing is particular - he is really innovative and yet manages to retain a warm, inviting tone at the same. Even though, his solos are often intellectual and “out there”, he still manages to communicate with the audience - something I heard and saw first hand when I went for his concert at the Esplanade last week.

What a pleasant surprise to find that Sonny is as expressive and forthright as his playing is. Evidence here. It was one of those rare interviews where you really feel that your questions are being heard and that the answers you are getting are really heartfelt and considered. Sonny talked about his instrument, his passion for his music, his relationship to his late jazz companions and what he hoped his legacy would be. He was very open about his youthful drug use and how he considered these to be mistakes that he had moved on from. And to top it off, when I thanked him for the interview and shook his hand, he kissed mine! Ah…. talk about old school! They don’t make them like they used to….

Tags: celebrity, jazz, sonny rollins