COVER

94 PRESTIGE J U LY 2019

t is 4.30pm on a Wednesday, and Grace

Thomas and I are having a chat in her

Sentosa Cove home. Midway through our

conversation, there is commotion at the front

door. Two pairs of little feet come bounding through, along

with the chorus of their curious voices repeatedly asking,

“Who is that? Who is that?” as they approach.

“My boys are home from school,” Grace says, and

introduces me. But when the five- and six-year-olds come up

to the dining table and spot the three-tiered tray of sweets

and cookies, their attention shifts. “What is that?” they

ask, pointing at the various items as their mother patiently

answers, “Chocolate, cookies... chocolate...”

As they wolf down the chocolate chip cookies, Grace tells

me she baked them fresh that morning. In fact, before she

moved to Sentosa from Orchard Road over a year ago, her

passion project was selling cookies online. “Because Mummy

is the expert!” the boys chime in.

The dedicated mum is also the chef at home and often

cooks dinner thrice a day: once for the kids, then for herself

and her mother who lives with her, and a third time for her

husband just before he reaches home so that he has a piping

hot meal to tuck into after work.

“Before my husband and I got married seven years ago,

he told me he would only have two or three home-cooked

meals a year, because he has always been quite nomadic,”

says Grace. “I was like, ‘You poor thing!’ And that was when

I picked up a cookbook for the first time. Now, I love cooking

because when someone eats my food and enjoys it, it makes

me happy. It’s a warm, fuzzy feeling.”

NEW CHAPTER

Growing up, Grace spent most of her time at home with

her nose buried in a book. An only daughter to immigrant

parents, she had a strict upbringing and was not allowed to

I

have many friends when the family moved from Shanghai to

the us when she was about seven.

“I lived a very sheltered life,” says Grace, who attended

an all-girls Catholic high school in California and graduated

from Massachusetts’ prestigious Wellesley College, a private

liberal arts college for women. “My parents had so many

conspiracy theories about bad things that would happen to

me if I left the house, because as immigrants, you’re very

scared when you don’t know the language or the people.

I wasn’t allowed to have play dates or sleepovers, or go out,

so I just read voraciously.”

The art history major says reading a lot meant that

writing has always come easy to her. Back in high school and

college, she wrote for the school paper, often covering topics

such as the arts and culture. These days, Grace is writing her

first young adult novel.

She was inspired by Stephenie Meyer’s hit vampire-

themed fantasy novel, Twilight, which she acknowledges

is “badly written and no Emily Brontë”. But as a teenager,

she had found the story engrossing. About a year ago, Grace

started to write a coming-of-age story set in college. Much of

her book is based on her own experiences, like jumping into

the dating pool after attending all-girls schools.

“I like writing light-hearted stuff because I’m not a very

serious person. Life is too short to be serious,” she quips.

“I also think anything that gets teenagers to read is good.

Reading is always better than playing video games.”

FEEL-GOOD FASHION

Through books, Grace discovered a second passion early

on: fashion. As a teenager, she pored over Victorian novels

such as Madame Bovary and The Count of Monte Cristo, and

became fascinated with the description of the characters’

opulent outfits, from their laced corsets to feathers and

powdered wigs.