A Tiger in the Kitchen Read Online Free PDF Page A

newspaper slowly dripping with disdain. “And it’s American.” With that, Mr. Germany waved me away, and a cashmered elbow emerged from behind to shove me aside.
    And then I moved to New York, the fashion mecca. At the ends of days of great fashion-world-inflicted stress, as I nursed the carcass of my self-esteem, the kitchen became my sanctuary. Let others have their ashrams and therapy sessions. I’d come home, pour a glass of sauvignon blanc, then take out two sticks of butter. On weekends and weeknights, I filled the West Village loft that was my newlywed haven with the smells of six-spice oatmeal cookies, apple-cornmeal cakes, chocolate-hazelnut tortes, sugary apricot tarts, lemon-macaroon pies, raspberry-oatmeal bars.
    In this cloud of cinnamon-scented zen, the pressures of New York would melt away. Outside the kitchen, life was complicated and meandered in unpredictable and uncontrollable ways. But with my mixer in hand and two sticks of softened butter before me, the possibilities were thrilling and endless—and the outcome was entirely governed by me. There are few things more basic or satisfying than kneading a ball of dough or rolling one out. Having a mind that cannot stay quiet, I’ve never been able to meditate without going stir-crazy. But give me a ball of dough and the not-so-distant dream of a piping hot cherry tart with a beautiful lattice-weave top and a generous sprinkling of confectioners’ sugar, and a feeling of serenity washes over me. My mind instantly hushes.
    I began to feel as if I were leading a double life. By day, I was fashion Cheryl, the girl who would follow the unspoken rules by nonchalantly ordering a salad at a business lunch—dressing on the side—but then be so hungry from just grazing on leaves that I had to race to McDonald’s for a quick meat fix before heading back to the office. But by night, I went from covering a world that was obsessed with not eating to one that was all about eating. Evenings were filled with blissful hours of chopping, searing, boiling, and baking. By the time a pot of homemade tomato sauce was on a delicious simmer and dinner was just minutes away, I would start to feel like myself again. All had been restored.
    I tried to make some Singaporean dishes, of course. Tried being the key word. And as I faced stir-fry after subpar stir-fry, I found it hard not to resent my mother for not having pressed me harder on this front.
    Like me, the women in my mother’s family were relatively slow (and reluctant) to enter the kitchen. Mum and her two sisters were a rambunctious lot for whom learning skills that would make them more marriageable (like cooking) was low on the list of priorities. Studying hard, occasionally skipping school, flirting massively with the neighborhood boys—Mum, Auntie Jane, and Auntie Alice did it all. (Well, maybe not Auntie Alice, who, as the eldest, was always the most responsible.) Mum and Auntie Jane still love to tell the story of hiding in their tiny apartment with the lights off on Friday nights if they didn’t have dates. “We were pretty girls, you know! We’d lose face if the neighborhood boys knew we didn’t have dates!” they would say, giggling.
    Their independent streaks would eventually land them successful husbands who could afford maids to do the bulk of the cooking. Although Mum has picked up some recipes from monitoring the maid at the stove over the years, she’ll be the first to tell you that her role in the kitchen remains that of the air traffic controller and not the pilot. Feeling that she had nothing to teach, she did not attempt to show me and my younger sister much beyond the go-to brownies she made whenever we were required to bring a dessert to a party and her very own version of banana bread, an oven-toasted snack of white bread topped with gobs of butter, mashed bananas, and sugar that we adored.
    Even my sister entered the kitchen in a serious way far earlier than I did. While I was relying on