When I was a kid my mum’s rice soup was the most comforting meal in the world, dad’s japanese curry was the best treat, strawberry shortcakes were a regular but only in December and eating muscat soft serve ice creams in the winter with my sister was the ultimate test. It’s no surprise that these are easily a few of my favorite eats and after seven years of living in a different country, most of my favorite meals consists of anything that reminds me of home regardless of whether I loved or hated it back then. Little bowls, plates, spoonfuls of comfort that make me close my eyes with a smile curling in the corner and go “just like………used to make it”.
I’d like to think that food triggers memories in the same way that scent does. When I have a great meal, I can generally remember every morsel, texture and layer of flavor that made the meal so delicious, who I was with and the countless string of information that is linked with it, like the first time I had ever had brunch, my cousin invited my sister and I to Crepes & Co in Bangkok. For my sister and I, our breakfasts had been a mango before school, so of course my initial reaction was “breakfast for lunch! what genius!”.
My first memories of cooking was from watching my dad cook these giant Sunday power breakfasts (basically scrambled egg with a bunch of good stuff), a ritual he held for about a month or so. I became obsessed with making omelets, I made one everyday after school, initially with the help of my mum and then later on like a pro egg folder. From omelettes I moved on to a bowl of pasta everyday. Then there was the day I tried to make a broth without any knowledge of what stock was, I just mixed a bunch of soy sauce with water and boiled it, went to my dads room to present him with this “soup”, which I’m sure he poured down the drain but told me it was delicious anyways, it was at this point that my sister intervened and told me that too much salt is a bad thing and that’s not how soup is made, lesson learned.
New design for the Streat team, we could probably create some really great memories for their youth trainees.
