Ong Meilan

Mei Lan grew up in Melaka in a Peranakan family where Sunday lunch took all of Saturday to prepare. Her grandmother cooked by agak-agak, by feel, and Mei Lan spent her teens beside her with a notebook, converting handfuls and pinches into grams. She still cooks from that notebook. She now lives in Singapore, shops at the same wet market every Saturday, and writes recipes that work in a small flat kitchen with one wok and a rice cooker.