My name is Sasha Gill. A name that, growing up in Singapore, no one could ever pronounce.
It is difficult to avoid a love of food when you hail from a nation that talks of nothing but. In Singapore, being asked if you have eaten is our universal greeting. There is nowhere else on earth you can grab a Michelin star meal in a street food store, or slurp down the perfect bowl of noodle soup at 3 in the morning, the second a craving strikes.
I am from a country whose national cuisine is a melting pot of all of its neighbours, and I myself am a melting pot of ethnicities. The food in my home is perhaps even more ethnically ambiguous than we are. We mop up Eurasian curries with a French loaf smeared with French butter. We scoop soothing dals over wild rice salads studded with flaked almonds. We sink our forks into layered sponge cakes laced with pandan, sandwiched with a thick mascarpone frosting.
I went to boarding school when I was 16, and traded my open-toed sandals and year-round swimsuit-wearing for woollen thermals and thick winter parkas. For some reason, I also felt that this was a good time as any to take the plunge and become vegan.
Even though I adored food, it was difficult for me to cook for myself as a new vegan. Some may argue that a true foodie is also an avid chef, but I was definitely- at that point – one and not the other. It is strange for me to think that there was once a time that I didn’t know how to make a roux, or pipe a buttercream rose. But six years ago the extent of my cooking prowess was making a great microwave granola (which as inspired as it may seem, did set the fire alarm off with great regularity).
It was then that I began to appreciate the beauty and versatility of plants. The mundane was suddenly gorgeous, and the gorgeous was suddenly extraordinary. I would linger in the produce aisle of the supermarket, admiring the blushing bundles of spring radishes, or run my fingers along the perfect fractals of a head of romanesco in the farmer’s market. It is truly remarkable to bite into a juicy tomato – astringent and subtly sweet – and even more so to be able to turn that tomato into a thick, velvety sauce to stir pasta into.
I have taught myself a lot in five years, and cooking will now always fill me with unsurpassable joy. There is just something beautiful about creating delicious food out of nothing but plants. Just plants! You don’t need to have a solid foundation of cooking knowledge to cook great vegan food. You just need to love plants.
I hope that you find something here that changes your mind about vegan food, if you are a sceptic. Or that it confirms what you knew all along – that plant-based cooking doesn’t have to be difficult, or overly fanciful. It is an inclusive, accessible and wildly delicious way to eat. And that it can be enjoyed by everyone – plant-eater and carnivore alike.
So stick around for the recipes, the (often rambly) commentary, my whining about the struggles of being a medical student in Oxford, my excessive use of brackets (case in point). I want you to love every colour, every smell and every taste. Not just when you are cooking, but in everything around you. After all, life is a lot like the food we eat. It is all at once spicy, sweet, sour, salty, and aromatic. You just need to have the courage to bite into it, to eat it all up, to experience pure rapture.
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