Every time I go to Bangkok, I try to find this particular dish, but I just can’t. It’s been 30 years. Find me this dish! 

He asked me out, and the funny part was he wasn’t old enough to drive at night. So his mother drove us.

Mocochinci is like a brewed tea indigenous to Bolivia. I remember having that with ice, and it was like the drink of the gods.  

He’d leave the kitchen, and my mother would be looking around to make sure he hadn’t added anything that she wouldn’t have.

A dosa is fried, and idli is steamed; uttapam is the in-between with the best parts of both. When it cooks, little pockets form, perfect for soaking up chutney.

Rambutans always taste better when you steal them. We would take a long pole with a hook at the end and use that to yank the fruits from the tall branches.

In Hakka cooking, we put xiang cong you into most of our dishes. This is an ingredient — lard with tons of shallots.

As a designer, I remember the color; part of my brain says it’s pink, but it’s not. I just went into disgust when I realized… it’s a tongue! 

You put this littlest, tiniest bit of pikliz on your plate, and, all of a sudden, the flavors would dance and come to life.

She had this old pressure cooker going. This thing would be rattling, we would hear the noise, the steam’s coming out, and it’s hotter than blazes. We were terrified.

I think with a lot of generational cooking, or cooking in Singapore, when it’s handed down, maybe something is missed out.

From early childhood, we spent time in Oswego, New York. My grandparents canned and pickled things in the summer: corn relish, dill pickles, seckel pears.