Food and Me

I was born in the Philippines. I always believed that my family are born to cook (with the exception of my sister! lol). The best cooks in my family have always been the men - my grandad and uncles cook without measuring anything and still everything comes up yummy! When there is a family gathering, prepare to diet for days as the food are gastronomical and plentiful good enough for 2x the amount of people present.

My Mum took these skills further and run a catering company for about 20 years. I have always been interested in cooking and would often be in the kitchen watching how everyting is made and asking questions. Probably irritating my Mum in the process when she has 100+ people to feed in a few hours time! But she always found the time to teach me the basics of cooking. As young as 9 years old, I would tag along delivering food or helping out during any catering events or cashiering. In High School, we had home economics which teaches us girls how to good wives in the future and the boys were taught woodworking and electrical stuff (lower those eyelashes ladies, lol). It may sound sexist, but I am glad I do have those skills now and I really did enjoy my cooking classes back then.

In the late 90's, fastfood chain become the new thing in food and my Mum's catering business suffered. Both my Mum and Dad only cook Filipino food and not interested in any foreign ones. I always seem to be the odd one in the family, my taste buds have always been curious. In order to help my Mum's business, I enrolled in professional cooking classes learning foreign food and later introduced this to my Dad who was more open minded than my Mum at that time and he incorporated a few recipes that quickly become favourites and made my family's catering business interesting again - some of them are Beef and Broccoli with Oyster Sauce, Chicken Cordon Bleu, Seafood Paella and Pasta Carbonara.

In order to improve our parties and events - I also enrolled in two baking school taking classes in chocolate artistry and baking which I truly enjoyed. To complement these skills, I also took up short courses in table setting, napkin folding, flower arrangement and bartending. My sister who enjoys the dining table better than the kitchen, had been the brains behind the business. While I was busy improving our menu, my sister was organizing the business in terms of procurement, invoicing, payments, etc.

I enjoyed the baking part rather than the main meal cooking and my Mum's customers seemed to agree! Both my Mum and Dad refused to learn to bake and I had no one to teach and carry on with my normal (boring) office work. I found myself working 9-5 in the office and coming back and baking till midnight to meet my Mum's order for baked items. For two years, I became her baking supplier - the crowd favourites were Chocolate Crinkles, Butterscotch Bars, Chocolate Eclair, Crusted Macaroons, Apple Pie and Pineapple Pie. Aside from them, I also make my own chocolate and truffles. I enjoyed the artistic part of the job so even though I only have 4-5 hours rest a day, I was having fun. For Christmas, I made my friends and family a Chocolate House gift (about 2o of them!) made entirely of dark and white chocolate with mashmallows and M&Ms for decoration. It was a hit!

After two years, the orders for cakes had increased and became more frequent. My weekends were also spent helping catering events to prepare drinks, canapes, "pretty sandwiches" that I hardly had time to rest and enjoy my career. My Dad has become an expert on a few of my recipes, and Mum was starting to learn new things as well. This is the time that I said goodbye to the family business and concentrated on my career. I still take over half of the kitchen during family occasions and my bestseller cookies and cakes were still present for friends and family.

My husband's favourite is anything chocolate - specially my Chocolate Crinkles and Chocolate Pudding. My father-in-law loved my apple pie and leche flan (see pic above) which is a philippine dessert quite similar to Creme Brulee. While my daughter just loved everything I make and has the sweet tooth to taste them all! She also seems to have a knack for it and took a childrens baking class a few months ago. She is waiting to turn 10 before she can join the Junior cooking class next year.

I, on the other hand, have decided to start baking regularly again, feeding anyone who would be willing to risk life and limb and increase their waistlines while trying my recipes! To highlight my new venture, I would be blogging everytime I bake or make something.

Wish me luck!

Grace