Kampong House Cooking Class

I've been taking cooking classes from a local chef called Ruqxana. The classes are small (2-3 students) and are held in Ruqxana's home kitchen. The menu rotates every day. Monday = Indian, Tuesday = Chinese, Wednesday = Malay/Indonesian, Thursday = Indochina/Thai, Friday = Singapore/Asian Fusion. This weekend she hosted a larger group - 12 students - on a personalized kampong cooking class on PULAU UBIN, a small island off the west coast of the mainland. Accessible only by ferry, a trip to Pulau Ubin is a throwback to Singapore in the 1960's. The island is home to Singapore's last kampongs (villages) - there are still about a hundred villagers living here. In contrast to the modern and efficient public utilities on mainland Singapore, Palau Ubin residents rely on wells for water and noisy diesel generators for electricity. Some villagers depend on fishing for subsistence, while others tend to their provision stored and eateries. At the main village, near the jetty, some houses have been converted to bicycle rental shops to support a quiet tourist trade.

The first part of the class was a tour of the jungle. Ruqxana took us on a hike where she showed us all of the fantastic natural herbs and spices that we would use to cook the meal planned for that afternoon. The jungle is basically your personal free grocery store if you know what the plants look like. There's a shot here where Ruqxana is plucking some lemongrass, and another spot where she found a huge cinammon tree that had fallen to the ground (you have never smelled cinammon until you've scraped the bark right off the tree).