On cookbooks

part of a n-part series on my love for food

Hello!
It’s been a while. I hope you’ve been good! If not, I hope you’ve been riding life’s waves okay-ish. If you haven’t been pulled under by the tides and are not drowning, you’re all g.

pancake setup! feat. the best spatula from ikea. sturdy and makes flipping a walk in the park.

I am making pancakes as I write this, because what better time? Pancake-making is a serious time-killer. A perfect way to procrastinate on a lovely gloomy tuesday morning. (OOF. Just found a huge lump in my pancake batter. I’d tell you what it is but I don’t know what it is.) Although, am I really procrastinating if I’m writing this?

the best-looking pancakes are cooked without grease in a non-stick

It’s been a long time since I’ve made pancakes because 1) i’m no longer a breakfast kinda person; 2) i’m no longer a sweet breakfast kinda person. i love savoury. it’s probably an age thing; 3) who has time to flip pancakes?

I used to have french toast or pancakes all the time as a youngling when my parents somehow willingly indulged my (almost weekly) weekend brunch antics when i was an adolescent. As a 30-year-old in this current climate where it’s expensive as hell to even breathe on this lovely sunny island i live on, i will tell you that a scenario where i willingly hand over my hard-earned money to cafes making very average/mediocre plates of 2 slices of bread, 2 eggs, avocado with salt and pepper and maybe sometimes fancy sprinklings of dukkah and i don’t know what else - a commercial sausage maybe - for the shocking price of $30 between the time of 9/10am and 1pm does NOT exist in my world. (Phew that was a very long sentence.)

Which also means, if I ever have kids and they end up going through some foolish, dumb i-want-to-throw-money-at-cafes-for-less-than-average-food phase, i will not indulge them. Can you imagine how much I would be paying in 20 years? Like $50? GET OUT! WHAT were my parents thinking?? Clearly not much. Just kidding, love you guys forever. Food was cheaper then and despite cafes being quite meh now, I am immensely grateful for all these past luxuries as they have contributed to my knowledge/experience of food and did, once, make me a very happy kid.

No disrespect to cafes and staff working in cafes — big shoutout to you guys for pulling through brunch service.

Sidetracking.. Making pancakes is not super ideal because by the time you’re done, the first cake always gets cold. And I don’t like putting them in an oven. If you tell me that’s my problem to deal with, you’re absolutely right. It also just occurred to me that it is lunch time and i’m eating.. pancakes? what a weird day.

My first vivid memory of wanting to be in food was when I was 9. As part of an ice-breaker exercise in my new class, the teacher had us write our ambitions on a piece of paper and go round introducing ourselves to our classmates. I remember writing “chef” and, realising how atypical that was compared to the other kids around me, changed it to “doctor” or something that I thought would be more acceptable. LOL. (I was pretty self-conscious as a kid thanks to my mum’s firm asian parenting belief of not praising your kid much. thanks mum for the current fear-of-failure tendencies disguised as perfectionism. did i just get too personal? + have i mentioned i love my mum to death?)

(eating pancakes really is an exercise in determination. i can’t stomach more than 1.5 pancakes but drenching the second one in expensive maple syrup means you can’t just toss it out.)

the few that i have kept! the others have sadly been thrown out due to a lack of space

Fast forward some years, I would find myself subscribing to Bon Appetit (directly mailed from the US, damn!) and looking forward to receiving a shiny new copy each month. (OMG remember when magazines used to have those scent flaps advertising perfumes that you’d open to sniff?! Fun times.) During chinese/mandarin class that was held in the computer room, I’d snag a seat that completely obscured me from the teacher and would peruse food blogs like smitten kitchen and the kitchen sink instead, imagining eating all those delicious things. The irony that I got chosen to go to China on an exchange programme because my grades were so good never gets lost on me. (It never happened because of an earthquake, thank god. Imagine how lost i would be.)

I was thinking, the other day, why the food I cook/bake is so american in nature and I think this must be why. I’ve been heavily influenced by american publications for the entire span of my interest in food. Although now, food from all cultures excite me a great deal.

Fast forward a few more years again, I discovered a major love for cookbooks and unintentionally started building a collection that I treasure so much. It is A LOT of money spent but I consider that my food education, since I never formally had one. I LOVE cookbooks. They are a gateway to another country’s cuisine, a journey into someone else’s mind and life. I love reading how people think about food, discovering flavours that I never thought to pair, learning techniques. I love how cooks/bakers aren’t just good at making food — they’re incredible at writing, too. I adore the photography that fills the pages. It amazes me how many talented people there are and how much talent one can possess.

I suppose a cookbook pretty much combines three things I really love: food, photography and writing. At several points in my life, I have considered being a food photographer / writer but never thought I would actually make it. Although, really, that’s a silly thought. If you work hard at something and still suck at it and make zero progress, there must be something wrong. The universe is probably not in equilibrium.

ANYHOO.
This is the recipe I follow for pancakes, with adjustments of a little more sugar and, depending on the consistency of the batter, more/less flour. If you’re interested.

And I want to know — what are some of your favourite cookbooks/books on food?

Thanks for reading my brief rambling! My brain is fried.
xx M