About

Is Life a Recipe – do you think it a strange title for a blog?

Food is such a major part of our life, but I think we sometimes take that for granted with everything now available 24×7, pre-cooked, pre-packed, supermarkets, fast food, and open all hours restaurants. We just eat, with no real thought to what we’re eating, when we’re eating, where we’re eating, who we’re eating with – we miss the origins, the culture, the history, the nuances associated to the dish.

We “fast-food” it, or we Western-dine, completely ignoring what’s available on the door-step, the local food-court, the local street vendor, or the hawker. Are we just too scared to try the local foods, uncertain of cleanliness, not wanting to experiment, not liking the look of the food, not wanting to sit with the local people? And God forbid we even to try to cook from scratch. That truly does seem to be a bit of a dying art these days.

I give major thanks to my Mum and my Nan for giving me capability and confidence in the kitchen from a very early age. Thanks to Da’s Thai Restaurant in Marget, England which was my first experience of Asian cooking.Thanks to Asia for opening my eyes to the plethora of food options and ingredients here, and thanks to my Mary and my kids, and my mates for allowing me to continually experiment on them.

I created this blog initially about my family, life, travel, and of course food experiences whilst living in Asia. When I visit a country I eat local. I want to eat the generations-old recipes, the “hand me downs”. I want to meet the people that are cooking it. I will ask for the recipes, which 99% of the time are never forthcoming as it is their great, great grandmother’s recipe or something like that.  So I write the experience in my notebook and come home and try to recreate it in my own style. This blog contains my own recipes for your pleasure, reviews and recipes of some of my food experiences from my travels, and local restaurant reviews too.

Food is the focus of some of the most important moments of our lives.

Eating and dining is a communal activity that is central to our social lives, both within the family and beyond.

It is over the dinner table that memories are made,

Deals are conducted,

Pain is shared …

We romance,

We bond,

We fight,

We celebrate …