Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

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Spiced Oatmeal: Edible Morning Mush


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I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’ve had some pretty decadent meals recently.

(And you haven’t even heard about the roasted foie gras with a candied almond crust or the pasta tossed with truffle oil and topped with Oscietra caviar I recently devoured at Gunther’s in Singapore.)

My own kitchen, however, is where I can right some of these delectable wrongs.

And I’ve chosen to start with breakfast, a meal that I usually skip. Well, unless it involves eggs and super-crispy bacon. And perhaps a stack of pancakes. But I digress …

Now, having read about the virtues of oatmeal as a cholesterol and fat fighter, I decided to put aside my years-long aversion to the morning mush and take the plunge.

But how to make it palatable? That was the trick.

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Paris: A Lunch With A View


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For a first-timer in Paris, the Sister had not done badly.

Sure, we hadn’t managed to get into L’Ami Jean or Hidden Kitchen, but the basics had been covered: Berthillon ice-cream, Laduree macarons, cervelas at Brasserie Lipp, a cocktail at the Hemingway Bar.

What was left on the list? Much too much.

Nonetheless, we decided, end with a bang we must. And so we found ourselves packing into a tiny elevator and rocketing into the gray Parisian sky.

The lunch to end our lunches (for now) in Paris would be at a classic — Le Jules Verne in the Eiffel Tower, which, at more than 400 feet above ground level, offered a sweet spot to sip some bubbly and look out onto the city beneath.

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Le Perigord, Je T'Adore


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It turns out, my mother was right — church is good for you.

On day 1.5 in Paris, we feel drawn to Sacre Coeur in Montmartre. It’s Sunday and the childhood Catholics in us just won’t be silenced. I’m not saying we went to mass — but we did have a holy experience of another sort.

While leaving the church, there it was — tent after tent filled with duck rillettes, honeys, chestnut jams and sweet, sweet strawberries from the Perigord region.

We gawped at the decadent spread and then one another. This street fair — clearly, it had to be a sign. And so we stopped to smell the strawberries.

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