Read Online A Tiger in the Kitchen by Cheryl Tan - Free Book Online

interview, I knew something serious was about to happen. Feeling a little ill, the team of reporters slowly made its way to the conference room. On the other side of the door, a neat stack of crisp envelopes lay on the table. We looked at one another—this was it. We’d spent months covering the massive layoffs and restructuring in the retail industry. Now it was our turn to be “restructured.”
    What ensued was a blur. I remember only the final words of the human resources woman with any clarity. If we had any questions, she asked us to call, e-mail, or look her up in her office—but only for the next two weeks. It turned out that the person who was laying us off had just been laid off herself.
    The first feeling was numbness. Then, panic. The media industry was crumbling as quickly as others were—faster, in fact, than many. Newspaper companies, magazines, broadcasters were laying off people by the dozens, the hundreds. What could possibly be out there for me?
    Then, almost instantly, I thought about my grandmother’s bak-zhang . For days I’d been lamenting the fact that I couldn’t take a year off, go to Singapore to spend time with my family and learn how to cook, because I had this job that I simply couldn’t leave. Now, suddenly, the path was clear.
    By the time I got back to my desk, I knew what I wanted to do.
    There was some confusion, at first, over what exactly I was doing back in Singapore.
    “Are you opening a restaurant?” my relatives asked.
    Well, no.
    “Are you writing a cookbook?”
    Um, no.
    “What about your job?”
    I was laid off.
    “Oh.”
    Silence. And then . . .
    “But who’s cooking for Mike when you’re gone?”
    The last question, in fact, was the one I would get the most frequently during my time in Singapore. The subtext, of course, was that I was being a bad wife by leaving my husband to fend for himself for weeks at a time while I was off gallivanting in my aunties’ kitchens, forcing him to have to buy or, horror among horrors, cook himself something for dinner. At first, I would tell them that he was very happy for me and fully supported my going home to spend time with my family, to learn how to cook. It soon became clear, however, that the only correct answer was “Well, he’s very excited that I’m learning how to make these dishes so I finally can cook him good Singaporean dinners.”
    And it was true, that was a goal—but just part of the goal. I wanted to make delicious Singaporean dinners for my husband, yes. But much greater than that was my desire to learn the cuisine of my people before the chance to learn disappeared. This had been a part of my culture, my heritage, my family, that I’d never known with any intimacy or clarity, thanks to my determination to ignore it as I bulldozed through my career. Also, I had been ambivalent about having children for years, but now that I was in my mid-thirties, it suddenly occurred to me that, if I ever had them, I’d want to be able to make them pineapple tarts, bak-zhang, and more. And if they were curious, I’d be honored someday to be able to teach them how to cook, telling them about their great-grandmother, the legendary pineapple tart baker, along the way.
    And so the plan was to travel back to Singapore for a few weeks at a time over the lunar calendar year—between the time I’d learned to make my Tanglin ah-ma’s pineapple tarts and the next Chinese New Year, the following February. I wasn’t sure what I’d learn, but I was eager to find out. The women of my family had fed me well for years. At the end of the year, I hoped I’d know enough. After all this time, it was my turn to feed them.
    The first night I landed in Singapore, my mother was waiting. A petite woman, she could be hard to spot in a crowd—except that, well, she’s gorgeous. When she’s happy, her smile is expansive, infectious, and her eyes are bright and sparkling. When I was a child, she would often bring out mugs of home-brewed hot