Rialto & the Chef who Cooks with her Heart

I am an untrained chef. I have subconsciously learnt to cook Italian food by observing my chefs all those years when I operated Rialto. When the original owner wanted to pack his bags and go back to Italy, I took over Rialto from him more out of compassion. Now I want to laugh. As a chef by crisis and who improved with each crisis, I must have received more publicity than many a trained chef!

I nominated my ex-student's mother, Mrs. Ram, for the Senior Citizen's Award. She qualified for the semi final round, and the Ministry of Youth, Culture and Sports must have found me interesting, for I was a teacher-turned-entrepreneur. Then, the goverment was encouraging her citizens to develop a spirit of entreprenuership. As a result, I was interviewed on Prime Time Morning TV as well as in the Straits Times and Today. My aim is to encourage readers that if someone like me can cook, anybody also can lah!

Indeed it is a far cry from my student days. Mom, a fastidious Nonya cook, had never allowed me to cook. Hence when I went to Canada for my undergraduate studies, I shocked my potential employer by attempting to make coffee with huge coffee beans. "Is that how you Malaysians make coffee? " Mrs. Heavenor asked, flabbergasted. "You must first grind the beans into powder?" I thought that would be the end of the interview. How could I convince her that I was capable of looking after her house with 4 children and 2 dogs while she was on vacation in Sweden for a month!

I was fortunate that Mrs. Heavenor had a sense of humour and still hired me. Hence, I learnt by trial and error from the recipe books.

Today, not only can I cook the food in Rialto but I am also able to whip up a satisfactory dinner of local dishes for my staff in 20 minutes. I have also created some of my own menu. The most popular one is my Penang Char Koay Teow. As one of my guests, Uncle John had commented, "It is out of this world!" Since it is out of this world, I should be more down to earth and write down the recipe to share with readers. Please find the recipe in my "Laugh and Be Healthy Blog". The address is http://choochookam.blogspot.com

Whenever you are frying either rice or nooodles, always remember that every strip of noodle and every grain of rice must kiss the wok! A big fire is very essential and the noodles or rice must be fried plate by plate. It takes only about 3 to 4 minutes to fry each plate; hence there is no necessity to fry in quantities.

Bon appetit! Buon appetito!

Gan chau