KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 30 ― Milestone birthdays are special especially the 60th. In the case of Helen Read and Abby Leong, they marked the momentous occasion by writing a cookbook that charts their five decades of friendship, fun, laughter and memories, all sealed together with a love for food.
“We have been talking about our cookbook for so long... almost 10 years,” explains Abby. Last year, Helen who is the founder of local fashion brand MS READ decided that it was the right time and she shared her wish with her son, Benjamin Yong, who is behind the dining powerhouse The BIG Group. “I told him the best birthday gift you can give me is to help me get this cookbook done.”
Helen and Abby have been friends since they were 11 years old. They first attended SK Marian Convent and later, Main Convent in Ipoh. After school, both went their separate ways to England ― Helen for a catering course while Abby joined nursing.
Twelve years later, Abby left a successful nursing career in England and returned home. “I tell people that I felt that I never gave my country a chance as I went straight to England after school.”
Strangely enough, she reconnected with Helen at a school reunion in 1984. It was the last place you would expect to see both of them since they hated these get-togethers. Maybe Fate played its part.
“I don’t know why I went especially when I was just divorced. After all that, we both swore we would never go to another reunion,” says Helen. The duo was united by a passion for cookbooks; each has their own pile of favourites placed next to their beds.
They pored through these cookbooks and planned cookout sessions every weekend.
The two of them dreamt up their first food venture to pay for their expensive cookbook habit ― informal dining at Helen’s home which they called Table of Eight. “We sold that table for RM50 per head and only one person had to be our friend and they could bring others,” says Abby.
That foray was a precursor to what we now know as the underground supper club movement. As Helen’s family grew bigger, that rosewood table where their dinners took place has been put for sale at Sundays, Helen’s furniture shop at Bangsar Village II.
The best of friends make a perfect team, complementing each other with their personalties. Abby likes the finer details while Helen is all about the big picture. “When we make sandwiches, I will do the filling while Abby will cut the sandwiches and make everything nice,” says Helen.
Even when they bake, Abby ends up covered with flour while Helen is nice and clean since she reads out the recipe. The two are so close, that Abby calls Helen “mother”. “I have no idea how it started but I followed the kids. Even the factory workers call her mother,” explains Abby.
Those cooking adventures, often carrying on till late at night, eventually led to the creation of Delicious together with Benjamin in 2004 at 1 Utama Shopping Centre. The cafe adjoining the MS READ boutique, fast became a food haunt for everyone, who trooped in for their carrot cake, scones and chocolate cake.
Abby went on to assist Benjamin in developing dishes for the Delicious Group before the company was eventually sold to E&O Berhad in 2010. Subsequently she joined The BIG Group. Nowadays, she’s semi-retired and works three days a week allowing her time to concentrate on the cookbook.
Helen’s daughter, Kristy Yong, is their manager and helping the two of them promote the cookbook slated for release the first week of December. Response to the soon-to-be released book has been phenomenal and even before next month’s launch, their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/HelenandAbby) has hit 10,000 fans.
Since both are avid cookbook collectors and love watching food shows on television, they both knew what they wanted when it came to their own masterpiece. Taking a page from Ina Garten or The Barefoot Contessa, one of their favourite television chefs (“We love how she cooks with such calmness”), they insisted on an easy-to-flip book size based on Garten’s cookbooks.
“We wanted a book you open and it does not flip back with a picture and recipe,” says Helen. Even its font size was important to them. “We had a lot of criterias like the words cannot be so small and had to be big enough for us to read,” Helen adds.
The original plan for one cookbook is now expanded into a series of three books, to be released on a yearly basis, as they have so many recipes in their notebooks. The books have been divided to cover what they call little stories about their life. “We decided to do it in parts and tell the stories... like my Cornish roots and Abby growing up in Taiping including her love for popiah,” says Helen. Two common themes in each book are festivals and travel.
Their first cookbook celebrates Christmas and they document a trip to Thailand where they learnt how to cook Thai dishes from a lady in her home. The book is also peppered with quotes like Helen and Abby’s current mantra ― “I’m 60 and I can do whatever I want.” Benjamin also wrote about his mother and Abby’s relationship. “He wrote about how we chitter chatter away in the kitchen, how we get up to mischief and it’s so nice when he walks in and smells the food in the kitchen,” says Helen.
The Home Favourites cookbook features 60 Asian and Western recipes. Helen learnt to cook Asian dishes from her retired maid who had prepared those dishes for Helen and her family for about 20 years. She admits her cooking methods are simple. “For the curry, we don’t stand there stirring and stirring as we just blend it together,” says Helen. She also improvises on certain cooking traditions, for instance toasting the belacan together with the “rempah” for the smell to be absorbed. This avoids the belacan stinking up the house. “You’re still heating it up and the flavour that comes out is still the same. But some people may say I am wrong and tell me off for murdering the Malaysian dishes,” says Helen.
The first cookbook is also known as the It’s All Possible cookbook since it’s targeted at beginners, or cooks who have no idea yet how to cook. “If you pick up this cookbook you can cook,” says Helen. Great believers of making sure the recipes work for all levels of cooks, they tested it out on friends.
Example, Kristy’s friend. “She does not how to cook but she managed to come up with the Indonesian layer cake first time round by following the recipe,” says Helen. It was an accomplishment since this meant a novice could follow and understand the recipe. “I was so amazed as that Indonesian layer cake is so hard unless you see someone demonstrate it,” says Helen.
Since everyone has varying levels of culinary understanding, the team of writers working on the cookbook kept the duo in check. “The questions they will ask and you go, so duh! That also you don’t know.. but they really don’t know,” says Abby.
Each of the recipes come with approximate cooking times, a change from the “agak-agak” method. Tips at the bottom of the recipe also guide them for different situations to perfect the recipe. “In our mother’s era, they would say, take a bunch of this, a two of that. When it came to us writing a book, if we were to tell people a handful of this, they will be like...errr, how-lah!” says Abby.
Sticklers for getting it right down to the details (they made their own chilli boh to ensure it tastes right in the recipes rather than using the commercial one), the duo insisted that their recipes must work. “Sometimes, you buy a cookbook, try the recipe and it does not work and people will say, don’t buy it as they miss out something, I would hate to hear that as we really want it to work,” says Abby. Unlike other cookbook authors who often leave their readers in the lurch asking what went wrong with their experiments, the duo want to help. “We put our email addresses in the book so if it does not work they can contact us,” says Helen.
The recipes in the cookbook are recipes they have used for a long time, like the famous carrot cake they first introduced in Delicious. Both of them advise people to read the simple carrot cake recipe and follow it exactly as each step is revealed. “Don’t read too much into the recipe. I have some people who tell me they can’t believe it is so simple. I’ve given this recipe to other people and they say it does not work. They beat and do this and that. You just mix everything and pour it into the tin and bake in the oven.” It’s a common misconception that a simple recipe must be missing a step that even experienced cooks like Helen and Abby are guilty of mis-reading recipes. “We see butter so we beat. In the end it did not work out, we looked at the recipe and it says stir. But we’ve been beating the butter like crazy.”
Work has also started on the second cookbook which will be launched by the next Mother’s Day. “In our next cookbook, we will talk about the Nyonya connection. Abby is from a traditional family, so we’ll talk about festivals and how food is connected to them like Chinese New Year,” says Helen. There’s also a trip to Tuscany to look forward to and a wedding cake.
“I’m not into baking but I love decorating as I am patient,” says Abby who made her niece’s wedding cake. Helen promises that they will also include friends and even people whom they worked with like Chef Sabri of The BIG Group who was also at Delicious.
In future, they hope to conduct classes. Helen reminisces about a scene from the movie, The Joy Luck Club. “There is a scene where the aunts are all together with the nieces in the kitchen, cooking and talking. I’ve always loved that picture in my mind. Sometimes when I am at home with friends and the young ones cooking away, I’ll say… hey Abby, this is a joy luck moment.”
Helen & Abby’s Home Favourites will retail for RM109 and can be found at MS. READ, dude & the duchess, Sundays and Ben’s Independent Grocer at Publika. It is expected to be available by the first week of December. You can pre-order the book online at www.msreadshop.com. for RM99 but bookings close on November 30.
This story was first published in Crave in the print edition of The Malay Mail on November 29, 2013
