“I never went to school because my mother needed me to go to work out in the fields. I still can’t read or even sign my name. My education was out farming and cultivating the land, which means I’ve always had a full stomach and an active life to go with it.”
“It’s pretty crazy living conditions here because of the hurricanes and the floods we’re hit with each year, but I live here because I like to feel exhilarated.”
“I remember back in the day my mum would hide the apples from us because she knew we’d eat them right away if we found them. We used to just follow the smell. Here, the fruit doesn’t have that aroma.”
‘You have to learn to be creative when you have five children. I would never let my kids go and buy sandwiches for school. It was ackee and saltfish and fried dumplings.’
“Tomorrow, you don’t know what life is going to bring and what is going to happen to you. Whatever is going to come is going to come. You have to embrace it.”
‘Cooking is important because it is a preservation of your tradition. It isn’t just for the sake of putting food on the table for our loved ones, but for remembering our mothers and our grandmothers.’
‘The most important thing in life is to have good relations with people, which isn’t easy. Everyone has their own character but we can’t depend on only ourselves. It’s hard here because it will never be a love story between the Palestinians and the Jews.’
‘I find it funny when I see chefs weighing out ingredients. I don't use recipes. I just know what ingredients work together, use my hands or eye to add them, and then I taste until I know it's right.’
“Every dish you cook and make is like a painting, you start with some raw ingredients but you can end with something truly beautiful and expressive. It stirs emotion.”
“I’m a country girl, really. I had a cow in my village back in Hong Kong and we would grow everything at home. It was so far away to get to a shop, we’d have to take a boat for 40 minutes there and 40 minutes back.”
“It’s so important to have faith in whatever you go into. You must believe in what you do, very much. You have to believe it is going to happen. It’s a question of character.”
“I do think it’s funny, as you get older you go out, meet up with the girls, do a little ladies who lunch thing, but I do realise, all we talk about is the things we used to do. I think, ‘well, what about now?’ ”
“I've never bought processed foods - not even biscuits. I make it all myself. I haven’t bought a loaf of bread in 40 years or a jar of jam. I think it’s important for a mum to know how to do all of these things.I even know how to rear and butcher a pig.”
“I think the key has been to listen and to always talk. Everyday you can turn to the other person and tell them it’s over, the hardest thing to do is to decide that it’s going to work and that you’ll make it work."
