About

In the Malay language, main-main means ‘to play around or fool around’, and masak means ‘to cook’, while masak-masak is what we call the children’s game of playing with toy kitchen implements and toy food. It was one of my favourite activities as a young child.

“Oh dear, what shall I cook now?”

These days, my cooking adventures consist mostly of adapting recipes to accommodate my food intolerances and health-conscious dietary preferences: trying my best to avoid colourings, flavourings, preservatives or other artificial additives, as little sugar as possible and using whole grains, as well as bearing in mind the “Failsafe” principles, i.e. free of additives, low in salicylates, amines and flavour enhancers, as recommended by Sue Dengate’s Food Intolerance Network.

I try to look at food from first principles – understanding cooking methods and ingredients, taking inspiration from well-established dishes and ingredients from different cultures to create my own combinations. More often then not, the best word to describe my cooking would be ‘experimental’, which doesn’t necessarily mean ‘edible’ (^_^)!

‘Making do’ is my motto – using what I have on hand, what’s easily available here in Singapore and managing within a reasonable budget.

This blog isn’t just about my occasional cooking experiments, but also my thoughts on food in general, Japanese and Chinese tea, food and health, shopping for food-related items as well as the history and sociology of food.

Some of the photos on this blog can also be viewed at my Flickr page.