A Tiger in the Kitchen

by Cheryl Tan

  In Baltimore, however, after a few years on the metro desk writing about murder and politics, I wanted to cover the more enjoyable things in life. Movies, TV, entertainment, food were my new desire. But writing about clothing and shoes? It never crossed my mind—until my boss, Mary, who had been the Sun’s fashion critic before becoming an editor, said, in not so many words, “We need someone to cover the fashion shows in New York. You’re it.” Puppy mills, drive-by shootings, a man who was suspected of pushing his pregnant girlfriend under a moving bus—I knew how to handle all of that. A fashion show? Models? Clothing? I had never so much as read an issue of Vogue. I started to panic.

  But from the first moment I set my (then rather unfashionably clad) foot in a fashion show (having bought my first Vogue just the month before in order to prep for the assignment), I knew I wanted in.

  Squeezed into my tiny seat at the Kenneth Cole show in a cavernous hall of Grand Central Terminal in New York City, I watched, slightly shell-shocked, from the eye of a tornado of double kisses and black-clad public relations assistants nervously darting around while barking into headsets. But then the lights dimmed, and a silence, thick with reverence, filled the room. Out of the darkness, the guttural cry for those in the front row to “uncross your legs!” came from photographers anxious to have runway shots devoid of heels.

  A pounding beat started up. In a single, dramatic flash, the lights came on. Instinctively, we all leaned forward. Models stomped down the runway, a whir of spring’s bright colors flashing before us. The air filled with the frenzied staccato clicks of cameras. The clothes were beautiful. My heartbeat crescendoed. I could barely breathe. The energy was intoxicating.

  After the finale, I sat in a daze, slowly coming down from the high. I couldn’t believe that a mere hour later, at my second of a day’s worth of fashion shows, this exhilarating experience would happen again.

  One season, I found myself rushing up the steps of the Fashion Week tent in midtown Manhattan, heels clicking, hair flying, palms sweating, as I pondered how exactly I was going to get into a show to which I hadn’t been invited but which I desperately needed to include in my fashion roundup for the Sun.

  At the entrance to the tent, I paused, as I often do, to take a breath and double-check my confidence. And then, the onslaught began. After battling my way through a mob of impossibly fashionable people, I’d made it to the front of the line with my toes miraculously untrodden by the countless pairs of spiky stilettos around me. A tall man with a headset and a crisp German accent gave me the fish eye as I wearily mumbled, “Baltimore Sun, Cheryl Tan.” “Baltimore,” he said slowly, examining me in a way that gave me the distinct feeling he did not approve of my haircut. “What country is that?” Before I could respond, a beautiful blonde with a headset next to him butted in. “It’s a newspaper,” she said, the three syllables of newspaper slowly dripping with disdain. “And it’s American.” With that, Mr. Germany waved me away, and a cashmered elbow emerged from behind to shove me aside.

  And then I moved to New York, the fashion mecca. At the ends of days of great fashion-world-inflicted stress, as I nursed the carcass of my self-esteem, the kitchen became my sanctuary. Let others have their ashrams and therapy sessions. I’d come home, pour a glass of sauvignon blanc, then take out two sticks of butter. On weekends and weeknights, I filled the West Village loft that was my newlywed haven with the smells of six-spice oatmeal cookies, apple-cornmeal cakes, chocolate-hazelnut tortes, sugary apricot tarts, lemon-macaroon pies, raspberry-oatmeal bars.

  In this cloud of cinnamon-scented zen, the pressures of New York would melt away. Outside the kitchen, life was complicated and meandered in unpredictable and uncontrollable ways. But with my mixer in hand and two sticks of softened butter before me, the possibilities were thrilling and endless—and the outcome was entirely governed by me. There are few things more basic or satisfying than kneading a ball of dough or rolling one out. Having a mind that cannot stay quiet, I’ve never been able to meditate without going stir-crazy. But give me a ball of dough and the not-so-distant dream of a piping hot cherry tart with a beautiful lattice-weave top and a generous sprinkling of confectioners’ sugar, and a feeling of serenity washes over me. My mind instantly hushes.

  I began to feel as if I were leading a double life. By day, I was fashion Cheryl, the girl who would follow the unspoken rules by nonchalantly ordering a salad at a business lunch—dressing on the side—but then be so hungry from just grazing on leaves that I had to race to McDonald’s for a quick meat fix before heading back to the office. But by night, I went from covering a world that was obsessed with not eating to one that was all about eating. Evenings were filled with blissful hours of chopping, searing, boiling, and baking. By the time a pot of homemade tomato sauce was on a delicious simmer and dinner was just minutes away, I would start to feel like myself again. All had been restored.

  I tried to make some Singaporean dishes, of course. Tried being the key word. And as I faced stir-fry after subpar stir-fry, I found it hard not to resent my mother for not having pressed me harder on this front.

  Like me, the women in my mother’s family were relatively slow (and reluctant) to enter the kitchen. Mum and her two sisters were a rambunctious lot for whom learning skills that would make them more marriageable (like cooking) was low on the list of priorities. Studying hard, occasionally skipping school, flirting massively with the neighborhood boys—Mum, Auntie Jane, and Auntie Alice did it all. (Well, maybe not Auntie Alice, who, as the eldest, was always the most responsible.) Mum and Auntie Jane still love to tell the story of hiding in their tiny apartment with the lights off on Friday nights if they didn’t have dates. “We were pretty girls, you know! We’d lose face if the neighborhood boys knew we didn’t have dates!” they would say, giggling.

  Their independent streaks would eventually land them successful husbands who could afford maids to do the bulk of the cooking. Although Mum has picked up some recipes from monitoring the maid at the stove over the years, she’ll be the first to tell you that her role in the kitchen remains that of the air traffic controller and not the pilot. Feeling that she had nothing to teach, she did not attempt to show me and my younger sister much beyond the go-to brownies she made whenever we were required to bring a dessert to a party and her very own version of banana bread, an oven-toasted snack of white bread topped with gobs of butter, mashed bananas, and sugar that we adored.

  Even my sister entered the kitchen in a serious way far earlier than I did. While I was relying on Shake ’n Bake boxes and Campbell’s soup cans in my own kitchen, Daphne was light-years ahead of me. Having gone to Cornell University’s elite School of Hotel Administration for her undergraduate degree, Daphne had been exposed to glimpses of life in professional kitchens and had begun trying out some of her lessons at home. During a visit that my childhood friend Jeanette and I made to Manhattan one summer in our mid-twenties, Daphne had offered to make dinner for us one night. In my own kitchen in Washington, D.C., I had treated Jeanette to simple grilled steaks and prepackaged creamed spinach. When we sat down to dinner in Daphne’s midtown Manhattan apartment, I instantly felt shamed—the younger sister had outdone her elder.

  As Jeanette and I watched, Daphne put on oven mitts and pulled roasted squash out of her oven. She dumped it into a blender with cream and a few spices, and presented us with a beautifully smooth roasted squash soup. Then she impressed us even more as she masterfully whipped together an Italian sausage risotto, nonchalantly stirring in cup after cup of broth as she chatted with us over the kitchen counter. This was like nothing I’d even contemplated trying in my own kitchen.

  With the help of Southeast Asian blogs and Web sites, however, I managed to piece together some semblances of the dishes I grew up eating.

  One of the dishes I desperately wanted to know how to make was tau yew bak, a stew of pork belly braised in dark soy sauce, sweet and thick, and a mélange of spices that is a signature dish of the Teochews, the ethnic Chinese group o
f my paternal ancestors. When done well, the meat is so tender you feel almost as if you’re biting into pillows. The gravy is salty, sweet, and gently flecked with traces of ginger, star anise, and cinnamon—just perfect drizzled over rice. And the best versions come filled with hard-boiled eggs and wedges of tofu that have been steeped in the stew for so long that they’ve turned the color of a good milk chocolate.

  My Tanglin ah-ma used to make this dish—often with duck instead of pork belly. You’d smell it the moment you walked into her apartment, and it was always a signal to rev up your appetite for the feast ahead. The idea of making it was daunting—I’d never even seen it being made—but with the Internet at hand, few things are difficult to attempt. After some days, I’d cobbled together a recipe from reading several versions online.

  It looked simple enough. After slicing the pork loin I’d bought—pork belly being just a little too fatty for me—I fired up the wok until the vegetable oil got nice and crackly. In went the sugar, followed by rapid stirring to keep the sugar moving as it slowly melted and caramelized. Once that happened, I threw in bashed garlic, ginger, a cinnamon stick, and star anise, and fried everything up together until it was an intoxicatingly fragrant goo. Everything after that was simple—dump in the meat, stir it up, add soy sauce, dark soy sauce, water, stir and simmer.

  I had been nervous about making this dish, feeling the discerning eyes of my Tanglin ah-ma on me the whole time. But as my very first tau yew bak simmered and the smells of dark soy sauce and spices began to fill my apartment, I almost started to tear up.

  As much as I’d loved my Tanglin ah-ma and her food, I’d never been able to fully communicate that to her. She spoke only Teochew, which I barely spoke, knowing only how to wish her “Happy New Year” and say “thank you.” I’d always wondered what she must have thought of her very ang moh granddaughter, who generally preferred to keep her nose in her Enid Blyton books until dinner or pineapple tarts appeared. She probably thought that I never wanted to learn anything from her, that I might never know how to cook. I wondered what she would think of this effort.

  The end result wasn’t perfect—the meat could have been more tender, and I’d completely forgotten to buy tofu—but it was a first step. As Mike and I slowly chewed on my tau yew bak shortly after, I began to wonder how I could learn to make the actual dish I grew up with. My Tanglin ah-ma had died years ago—but when she was alive, she had cooked almost daily with my auntie Khar Imm, who had married my father’s brother and played the role of the dutiful daughter-in-law, helping my grandmother in the kitchen after moving into the family home.

  Someday, I thought, I’ll ask her.

  In the fall of 2008, as the financial framework of the world rapidly dissolved, my employer, The Wall Street Journal, was on top of the news. Because I was a fashion and retail writer, fashion label closings and retail bankruptcies became the bread and butter of my work. My days were filled with devastating stories, and my evenings were filled with news of friends losing jobs. A twitch under my left eye that I’d had during a trying relationship in my twenties suddenly returned. My hair started falling out. By early 2009, I’d developed migraines so bad my doctor was briefly worried that I might soon have a stroke. My dad, after all, had had a minor one at age forty.

  On that morning in 1985, my father collapsed while brushing his teeth. He’d suffered a stroke that, fortunately, was so mild he was back on his feet within days. His arms were a little weak, and it took months before he stopped feeling tired, but a more significant change occurred. The man who always had been defined first and foremost as a busy executive—regularly flying from Hong Kong to Shanghai to Taiwan to tour factories or close deals—suddenly wanted to spend more time with his family.

  Now it was time for a change for me, too, my body was telling me.

  With Chinese New Year approaching, I knew my auntie Khar Imm would be gearing up her baking. On the docket that year were chocolate cookies, almond bites, and of course, pineapple tarts. I e-mailed my father’s family, asking after them and then gently inquiring about this year’s tart-making schedule.

  And with that, a few weeks later, I was on a plane, heading to Singapore, heading home.

  This may sound odd—and I always have the distinct sense that I may get struck by lightning each time I think it—but one of my favorite childhood memories was of my Tanglin ah-ma’s funeral.

  My younger sister, Daphne, and I had led a somewhat sheltered childhood up until that point. I rarely ventured far from our apartment, except to play soccer or Ping-Pong with the boys in our neighborhood. Instead, I spent most of my time reading, thinking, and penning those Very Important Thoughts in a little journal. I had been shocked when my grandmother died. I had known she was ill but hadn’t understood exactly how dire it was. (My parents had thought it best to shield us from the details.)

  From the moment we got the news, however, we went from fairly quiet lives centered on homework and boring piano practice to a vortex of nonstop activity pebbled with a motley crew of characters who were loud, boisterous, and filled with life. There was Jessie, my auntie Khar Imm’s daughter, who was just a year older than I was but already so commanding a presence that she was somehow able to boss around even those twice our age. There was her father, my uncle Soo Kiat, my father’s younger brother, a thinner, louder version of my dad, who always had a glint of mischief in his eyes that hinted at some probably inappropriate joke lingering behind them. Uncle Ah Tuang, a sturdy young man whom my grandmother had taken in as a baby and raised as her own, loved my grandmother and his older “brothers” fiercely and was quick to join in any conversation, peppering it with jovial jokes and laughs, big and deep.

  My auntie Leng Eng, my father’s older sister, was the serious one who kept everyone in line. A vice principal at one of the most prestigious schools in Singapore, she watched over everything with an eagle eye, directing us in crisp English or Teochew to fetch porridge for a guest or make sure teacups were constantly filled.

  And, of course, there was Jessie’s mum, my auntie Khar Imm, every bit her daughter’s mother in spirit and manner. Auntie Khar Imm had lived with my grandmother since she married into the household—she’d shepherded Tanglin Ah-Ma through her illness and guarded the wake and funeral with the care of a woman who seemed to feel the loss with a silent intensity that the rest of us could only imagine.

  I had never spent much time with my father’s side of the family, because of a rift that began shortly after my mother married into the family. My parents had met soon after he’d ended a courtship of several years with a woman who would have made an ideal daughter-in-law: she came from a well-off family, she was a schoolteacher, and she was obedient and polite. My mother, on the other hand, was the mouthy nineteen-year-old—nine years younger than my father!—who had taken a job as a receptionist in the company where he worked. “Your mother was a Campari girl, you know,” Dad still proudly says of this time. The company they worked for distributed Campari in Singapore, and my mother’s job occasionally included holding trays of Campari drinks at events, flirtatiously pressing people to try them. My parents flirted and started dating. Shortly after she took a job as a flight attendant for Singapore Airlines, my mother married into the Tan family.

  The Tan household was fraught with tension from the beginning, when my mother refused to quit her job after the wedding. It was something of a beauty contest to get a spot flying for Singapore Airlines at the time, and my pretty mother was at the pinnacle of glamour among her friends. For starters, what she wore to work had been designed for the airline by the French couturier Pierre Balmain: a beautifully regal dark blue batik uniform that was a sexy and form-fitting version of the sarong kabaya, a traditional Malay costume consisting of a three-quarter-sleeved blouse paired with a long, pencil-thin wrap skirt. Because the uniform has a scoop neck that dips about as low as it can while still being decent, there is a popular joke in Singapore that involves an SIA flight attendant leaning over to ask a male passenge
r as she serves the in-flight meal, presumably of spaghetti and meatballs, “Sir—would you like sauce on your balls tonight?” Building on that image, SIA’s advertisements from its inception, in 1972, blatantly touted its flight attendants as sex symbols. From the beginning, ads featured dazzling pictures of sarong-clad stewardesses in exotic locales next to the words “This girl’s in love with you.” The more famous and long-lasting slogan wasn’t any less evocative: “Singapore Girl, you’re a great way to fly.”

  Having beaten dozens of hopefuls to win this job that had become a powerful emblem of the new modern and sophisticated Singaporean woman, my mother refused to quit just to cook and be a dutiful daughter-in-law. My grandparents had hoped for an obedient daughter-in-law but instead got my headstrong mother—who had a (in the minds of traditionalists) slutty job, no less. One night, when my dad was out of town, the SIA van arrived at my grandparents’ home to pick up Mum for a flight. My grandparents bitterly protested, forbidding her to leave. To pry herself free, my mother slapped my grandfather and ran out the door, so the story goes. When my father returned, he and my mother moved out immediately. For years after that, my sister and I peered at this side of our family over a chasm, politely sipping soda and eating pineapple tarts whenever we visited my Tanglin ah-ma. Undiscussed disagreements from years past had congealed and become impenetrable. Whenever we sat around the coffee table at Chinese New Year or the few other times we visited, the heavy air simply was too difficult to pierce. Small talk about school, health, and business was usually all we could muster.

  Tanglin Ah-Ma’s funeral, however, brought us all together.

  Now, I’m just going to say this. Chinese funerals in Singapore are pretty fun—if you’re eleven. And, well, if you’re not the deceased.