TALKING ABOUT FOOD

Why I love the hospitality industry. A lot of the love comes from the fact I love to eat and drink. I also believe that food is integral to our identities and that we use food and cooking as a way to build home;  this is particularly important for migrants, but for all who leave home (even if 'home' is down the road) we use food to build a space of belonging. But a big part of why I love hospitality are the same reasons why I love the theatre and the arts worlds. I think you can change the world through storytelling, and I think that essentially theatre, art and food are storytelling. And, the important part of telling stories is the element of sharing. We share stories to connect with each other. We paint pictures to tell stories, we write poetry to connect emotionally each other, and we share food to feel part of a community. (Food is also emotional).

I was planning to end this writing project after a year, therefore November 2015. Why? Because I like a project, I like a beginning and middle, and an end. I like to evaluate and consider. I like to round up, round off and pontificate my learning. I recently had an interview, and my interviewer said that I was clearly very goal focused - and I agree, I am happy to muck in to do whatever needs to doing to achieve what was set out to be achieved - and this was a project for me to listen, watch, learn and write about it. But as I was pondering what to round off with about this year in food, wine and London, I realised that I was still thinking, I was still oscillating between different ideas and had come to no conclusions. Therefore I have decided to go against my nature to sum things up, and instead - continue writing. I'll continue writing on a monthly basis, about how food, wine and the location of London intersects in my life.

The ace thing about London? The ease of travelling, in general, but of course to Europe. And Munich, you've been gorgeous.  This was my first trip to Munich. I've been going to Berlin once or twice a year since 2012 (and have been as a few times before that), it has been really interested to see the eating and drinking scene change, and I was curious to see what Munich was like.  Of course there are always going to be wonderful restaurants in cities like Berlin and Munich, but those are generally outside my income; what I am interested in is the development of the average, everyday eater. Berlin has great cafes, and bars, but the ‘wine bar’ and thoughtful but affordable neighbourhood restaurants wasn't really there the first few times I was in Berlin. This contrasts to what is happening in London (this is of course due to the difference economies and indeed structure of London in comparison to Berlin). But in Berlin it has been growing in the last year or so. I...

September - the summer wanes, the rain hits the pavement and then just has you’ve accepted the need for jumpers and umbrellas, days of sun. September, decide who you want to be and just go with it, you’re playing with my emotions, my wardrobe choices and my sensibilities. But that’s the beauty of the first days of autumn. Leaves turn orange as late morning sun shines through their delicate foliage - September is the month where anything and everything can happen, in one day. This September has been no different. It’s been a year since Dan and I sat down and devised the Chefs of Tomorrow plan, and now we have a new, bigger, more adventurous idea for the CoT (details soon, as soon as we know…!). It’s exciting to see how one thing, one idea, on one Sunday in September has grown into this new vision of a project (now I’m just being mean cos I can’t tell you the plan). Which reminded me how wonderful it is to work with people who are big thinkers, supportive and enthusiasti...

  I have a couple of points of contention that I need to air. Better late than never. This year’s Great British Menu was celebrating the WI (Women’s Institute) and yet only 4 of the 24 chefs competing where women. Seems a weird way to celebrate women’s contribution to the British heritage and indeed it’s culinary history; unless of course the attitude is women cook, and men are chefs (aka the professionals)’ which is exactly the message this gives. This undermines the work that women are doing in the industry; it undermines the industry as a whole. There are more than 4 women in the UK at that standard. The National Restaurant awards named Barafina as no.1 restaurant this year, a restaurant run by a woman. If the producers had asked more women and they had turned them down, then they need to re-think the structure of the show. Great British Menu no longer shows off the industry as a whole and feels disingenuous. There is some amazing food this year, and we're only i...

Earlier in the year I wrote about how technology is changing the restaurant industry for CODE Quarterly and I spoke about the american ticketing system Tock, since then The Clove Club have taken on the system. Ticketing systems within restaurants is a topic that elicits strong opinions for and against, and has many in the industry curious about how it can work.  I doubt there is much argument that it is something that will work in some establishments and not in others, but how big is the range of where it will work? Places that are akin to The Clove Club in it’s set menus structure, such as Lyle’s and Typing Room, are not employing the system and seem to have made a conscious decision not to.

This year I've been  writing a play that looks at how food feeds into our understanding of home and belonging. It's about a Malaysian woman who moves to the UK, misses home, sets up a street food stall selling Malaysian food... The play is called 'Don't sing in the kitchen, or you'll marry an old man', check out the project here: www.DontSing.co.uk As part of research for this project I have been speaking with people in London about food and home. In the series ‘Home, Food & Business’ I have been focusing on those who have developed a career around food that reminds them of home and who predominantly have ‘home’ in multiple places.I thought I would gather those interviews here.

This last month I have been trying to write an abstract for an academic journal submission about food, home and belonging, and identity. I’ve toyed with lots of different ways to approach this and I still haven’t worked how; but in the course of the month I have been reminded about how important nostalgia is in building home, and therefore a sense of identity. This idea of nostalgia and food came from a surprising place, a mid-week lunch at a ‘fancy’ restaurant with my friend Kevin. Typing Room had been in on my hit list for awhile, so it was great to to finally get there.  The plan was a quick-ish lunch, the three course menu. Now remember that time, not long after you had moved out of home, when you realise you can have dessert for dinner? And you do it, just because you can? Well, Kevin and I went against all good plans and had the five course tasting menu - because we f*cking could, because I’m a grown up and I can spend my money just the way I want to. And so began ...

  I feel like in the last few weeks there has been a focus on meat. Beyonce made a ‘big (anti-climactic) announcement’ that she was a vegan; then confirmed she does eat meat on occasion. The Chinese ‘dog eating’ festival dominated headlines and was counteracted with articles about how our (the west’s) consumption of meat is very problematic - for the animals, for the environment, and for our health.  Hadley Freeman wrote a great, well balanced piece this weekend about the increase in healthy-eating gurus; which I could rant on about, in particular the fact that it’s a scene dominated by privileged, white women, who are also ridiculously beautiful. I mean, who has time to be that good, unless you have the financial luxury to focus on those things and don’t have to run around just trying to survive? (I too would do daily yoga and make delicious foods if I wasn’t juggling multiple jobs, yet still dipping into my overdraft… for starters, where would I do my daily y...

I’ve been thinking a lot about networks recently, specifically to do with working and careers, for a number of reasons. Firstly because my part time job is working for a corporate global law firm, where I work on the alumni team. Our job is to create meaningful networks across the globe. In particular what I have been thinking about is how networks link into real time and real spaces. What does this have to do with London, and food and wine - my main passions in life and this blog? Bear with me, I will get there. Why I have been thinking about networks in this way is due to a work project I am on to build a new website and database - so a lot of time thinking about how to build a virtual space that will create strong, positive connections across time and space, across various different people, ages, expertise, whose only tangible connection is that they spend time together in an office, some where in the world. My conclusion was we needed to create something that wasn't so...

I am half Iban, the Iban are a tribe in Borneo, predominantly in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. Gawai is our harvest festival, so each year I try to celebrate it, which is around the beginning of June. This year I had a garden party. It was wonderful! I cooked for 22 people. Everyone brought bubbles of some kind to start the day off, and I served riesling with food - kung fu girl (from Washington State) and Farmingham (from New Zealand). This day is what London is to me - family, friends and sharing good food and wine.  I cooked beef rending from a recipe from my mum, obvs (recipe at the bottom). I also marinated chicken - can't remember what, something chilli, garlic, ginger no doubt, classic stuff. I made sweetcorn ice cream, which is hugely reminscent of my childhood in Malaysia. I used Dan Doherty's peanut butter ice cream recipe, and used three tablespoons of sweetcorn. The key with ice cream is about the sugar, and I figured peanut butter and sweetcorn had s...

This post is late. Which is in keeping with the theme of the post. It's been just another manic month... May has been quintessential London. The highest of highs and the lowest of lows. I am exhausted. I am emotionally, mentally, professionally exhausted. And that is what London does to you. The hustle, the bustle and opportunities and the compete an utter fun and equal measures of bullshit, that this town throws up. So here is a run down    of some of the stuff that has happened, places I have been (like Le Gavroche!) and some thoughts on those happenings.

When I learnt how to sail, the first thing I was taught was how to capsize. When I went to gymnastics, the first thing I was taught was how to fall. Falling, capsizing – failing - was all about the recovery; and in gymnastics, it was all about recovering gracefully, getting up with style. I got married young. I got divorced young. A dramatic story of my 20s. He left for me another women. My heart broke. The divorce paperwork nearly killed me. But, it was a wonderful relationship; until, it wasn't. And now I'm saddled with this yoke of a 'failed marriage’. But what if we think about failure differently? It’s a cliché, but these kinda heartbreaks are what makes me who I am today - if I am not a success, at the very least I have survived. 100 years ago the average marriage lasted about a decade - women died in childbirth, life span was a lot less, so ‘forever’ had a different meaning. We have thankfully moved on from then and are living healthier, longer lives, ...

As a New Zealander I’m not familiar with the brand Blue Nun, but that doesn’t mean I’m not familiar with the idea it represents for the riesling grape - syrupy taste, all shiny sugared and shoulder pads of 80s glam (Jem and her Holograms totally drank riesling).  But, riesling is my favourite white wine grape ( as spoken about in January ), and so I went off to chat with Ed, from Highbury Vintners, to find out more about this under appreciated wine. Ed inspired me to have the dry Jan realising month in the first place, with his strategically placed ‘Dry January’ sign over the dry rieslings. Ed and I share the same love over this slender bottled beauty. 

This article was first published in Issue 2 of the  CODE Quarterly A new industrial revolution is happening and it is not represented by an iron structure built in the middle of Paris. This revolution is supported by dark rooms in distant lands – servers processing your apps, your social media timelines, your daily steps through the city. In the world of service and hospitality we have online booking apps, with OpenTable being the main player; and iPads are now appearing on tables instead of waiters. Therefore, business sense means we need to investigate ways to get connected and tapped into the app-savvy foodie. So technology is booming, but where is it taking us? And how does it affect the hospitality industry, from the inside and as a guest?

A short film, because sometimes it's hard to find words to describe what I mean. I have the privilege of being able to go on holidays, and being in London means there are so many possible destinations. So many flights around the world, from multiple airports. In March I went to Hong Kong (to see old friends), Hanoi and then home to Malaysia. I hadn't been to Vietnam before, and I loved Hanoi. Can't wait to go back. So many things to say, that in the end, I just cobbled together my photos and film and wrote a poem/prose thing of my thoughts.

"Wine is not a solitary drink. It is essentially sociable, and one of the greatest pleasures it has to offer is the sharing of it..." -  The World Atlas of  Wine , 7th edition Twitter has been playing on my mind of late. I mean, it’s always on my mind – which is kinda the point. Twitter has an omnipresence and my thumb is addicted to the swiping movement.  The immediacy and intimacy of social media makes me a voyeur. Which I love, and hate – in equal measures. I wonder what Lacan and Mulvey would say about it all. It means that when meeting someone in person, I can say, non-murderoulsy, but still creepily “I know what you did last summer”. I don’t know how I feel about that.  I eavesdrop (twitter-drop?) on conversations between people I follow, and so I know details of people who have no   idea that I even exist!! And I’m ok with this. Most of the time. I don't what that says about me?! When looking at my phone the world narrows, it fe...

I got a little annoyed with January and everyone wanting to have a ‘dry January’. I had worked all through December and I wanted to have fun for the beginning of the year. Luckily I had a few trusted friends who were equally unimpressed with the dry Jan concept. But of course, everyone was broke (including myself) so I decided that it was going to be a month of drinking good wine at home.   That’s the thing with London, there is always something good to do, there is always somewhere great to be; it’s a tricky city to be in, when broke. And January is such a sad month, that you want to brighten it up with fun, but you don’t have the money to do so. When I went back to uni to do my PhD I used up all my savings and really didn’t have time to pick up extra work, so even though I graduated six months ago, I’m still playing catch up and living pay check to pay check. Therefore despite the December work slog, I was back to being broke by January. And I know that I’m not alone in this...