When I moved into my own place a few years ago, the one thing I didn’t need to worry about stocking was my kitchen cabinet.
My mother had happily set aside boxes of her own kitchen equipment from her own home as convenient hand-me-downs. A retro weighing scale, old cake pans, jelly moulds and other mementos that evoked tasty childhood memories of homemade birthday cakes, durian ice-cream and kueh lapis were all were dusted out of decades of storage. Once very much loved but now visibly neglected, they are all tools that she’s squirreled away ever since she got busy making sure my brother and I grew up into teenagers, and then young adults, with purposeful, activity-filled lives - never mind if, ironically, it was all at the expense of her own hobbies.
I recall this little vignette because so rarely do we realise all the sacrifices our mothers make for us. This Mother’s Day, we’ve piece together a little package of heart-warming stories to celebrate the most important women in our lives. In our feature story this week, we look some of the world’s biggest culinary heroes - many with multiple Michelin stars to their names - and realised that the old adage couldn’t ring more true: that behind every successful chef is an equally tough woman. Or in this case, a mother who could just as easily whip up a weekend family feast as she could run a restaurant.
Joan Roca of three Michelin-starred El Celler de Can Roca and mum Monserrat Fontané
We also take time to recognise some of Singapore’s leading foodie mums, from young mothers like Charmaine Seah-Ong, to PR extraordinaires Su-Lyn Tan and Lynn Yeow-De Vito, restaurateur-turned-mumpreneur Dolores Au, and accomplished doctor and mother of six Jade Kua, and get them to share how they’ve managed to marry their love for dining with the demands of motherhood, and also some of the most bizarre cravings they've had during their pregnancy (including eating 12 durians a week!)
Lynn Yeow with husband Beppe de Vito of the Il Lido group and their four boys.
Speaking of hectic schedules, if you did not have time to shop for the perfect Mother’s Day gift this year, we managed to convince Resorts World Sentosa’s award-winning pastry chef Kenny Kong to spare some time from his equally busy competition training schedule (he plays mentor to the Singapore National Pastry Team as president of the Singapore Pastry Alliance) to design a special Verbena Tea Catalan Cream dessert that you can make for Mum at home. Or better yet, invite Mum into the kitchen to make it with you, and turn it into a fun afternoon of mother-child bonding.
RWS executive pastry chef Kenny Kong plating his Verbena Tea Catalan Cream dessert
And, lastly, because we wanted to embrace all things to do with Mum, we have also rounded up the five Mother sauces of classical French cuisine in an easy-to-read graphical cheatsheet that you can print, cut and keep on your kitchen fridge. Without them, plenty of other delicious derivative sauces would not have come into being today. Just as how we would have gotten nowhere - and definitely nowhere near as happily nourished - without you, Mums.
To all the mothers we know, happy Mother’s Day!
