Malaysia Tatler – August 2019

malaysia tatler. august 2019 151

INTERVIEW: AINA IZZAH; PHOTOGRAPHY: SOO PHYE PHOTOGRAPHY

BOOKS | LIFE

I write in.....

Very fl owery calligraphy that cannot

be easily read by most people.

The best remedy for writer’s

block is....

Go on holiday to reset, because you

have no distractions from work,

house chores and other daily activities

that tend to derail you from writing.

My current fascination is...

Deciphering the lyrics of The Beatle’s

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. It is a

very trippy song, popularly thought to be

inspired by LSD, but quite recently my

dearest Rottweiler, Lucifer Buttercup Chai

passed on and I read the lyrics. In the

context of the Rainbow Bridge, the lyrics

make a lot of sense and so I am fi guring

out how to produce a trippy collage-like

music video, dedicated to my dog Luci.

This is probably the start of a Beatles-

themed degustation, eventually.

My all-time favourite book is....

The Art of War by Sun Tzu. You can read

this book many times in your life, and it

somehow has different applications at

different stages of life.

My favourite sentence from

a book is...

“I may not have gone where I intended

to go, but I think I have ended up where I

needed to be,” from The Long Dark Tea-

Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams.

GET TO KNOW THE AUTHOR

Book More

Than a Table

Chef and now author, Isadora Chai lets us in

on her degustation themed French cuisine

book—straight from Bistro à Table’s kitchen

How is the process of writing

Edible Satire: French Cuisine

with a Twist like?

I had many draft versions of Edible

Satire before it went to print. And to

determine whether it was a useful

manual, I had some of our new

apprentices and cooks follow the

recipes to see whether they could

understand the text and follow its

instructions, even without prior

experience of making the dish.

This cookbook is a compilation of

a lot of recipes straight from Bistro

à Table's kitchen.

What are some of your personal

favourite recipes from the book?

Off the top of my head, I love my

smoked foie gras with cotton candy

dish and the seared lamb with

smoked eggplant and crispy lamb

fat trimmings from the Charlie &

the Chocolate Factory degustation.

I could eat that every day; well, as a

matter of fact, I eat a different variation

of it at the restaurant every week

Coming from an extensive

culinary background, did you fi nd

it diffi cult to choose and compile

recipes to feature in the book?

Yes, it was emotionally diffi cult to

narrow down the dishes that

I wanted to showcase, especially

when hundreds of dishes have

been created from the Bistro à

Table kitchen; I liken it to selecting

your favourite children to put in a

photo album!

What’s your advice for readers

who fi nd degustation themed

menus intimidating?

It’s quite intimidating to attempt to

replicate an entire chapter. I would

suggest to go through each chapter,

read the recipes, and when you

are drawn to a certain component,

try replicating it. If you love it, it

would probably give you further

encouragement to soldier on and try

to complete the course in its entirety.

What are three ingredients that

you just can’t live without?

French butter; I personally have at

least 3 kg of French butter stocked

at home. French cream because if

you want to sin, sin properly. Organic

eggs because the humble egg can be

turned into an infi nite form of dishes.

Edible Satire: French Cuisine with

a Twist is available in bookstores

nationwide. To know more about chef

Isadora Chai, visit bistroatable.com.