SINGAPORE - When I was little, my mother banned me from the kitchen. She believed firmly that a woman's place was anywhere but there, and had ambitions for her two daughters. Not for us the life of a chue farn por, the Cantonese phrase that translates loosely and derisively to "cooking woman".

So we weren't supposed to be able to cook or to even be interested in cooking. We were supposed to do "more important things".