Old school cooking the way mama intended it

LAKSA JOHOR

School holidays meant working with either her mother or father. Then 10, Mashrifah Ravendran chose what she thought was the lesser of two evils: helping her mother in the kitchen. Helping her father would have meant hard labour on the farm.

As it turned out, all the peeling, pounding, grating, and cutting of ingredients required to prepare food for a family of 14, and sometimes guests too, was hard labour.