Carol Cheng Sun Mooi was born in 1940, the fi rst child of a migrant couple who fl ed widespread unrest in China and settled in what was then Malaya. She attended Convent Bukit Mertajam in Penang. Outside school hours, she assisted in a restaurant run by her parents and, from the Hong Kong chef they employed, Carol learned her fi rst exotic dishes.

Her passion for cooking started when she was 13 years old, whipping up dinners for younger siblings when their parents were delayed at work. It was trial and error and Carol still remembers how she was punished when the kale turned yellow or the eggs were too runny. The early mistakes steeled her determination to conquer the kitchen.

From the beginning, her world appeared to revolve around the preparation and the serving of meals. After her O-Levels, she became the ardent pupil of a master chef who owned the highly successful Cathay Restaurant in Langkap, near Perak’s former port township of Teluk Anson (now Telok Intan) on the banks of the Perak River. It was there that Carol soaked up a great part of her culinary knowledge, from de-boning a chicken to making a mooncake.

For such diligence, the formidable Chang Peng Sun allowed her the honour of helping him stir his famous shark’s fi n soup – a privilege he granted nobody else! Noted cooks also came visiting the famous eatery and, from them, Carol gathered Cantonese cooking secrets. The learning process at Cathay took all of two decades. As a working woman raising a family in Ipoh where she came to settle in 1964, Carol found the Langkap years invaluable.

The kitchen never fazed her. The time spent assisting and observing in well-patronised eating outlets also broadened her outlook and made her open to the wealth of other cuisines. She is an intrepid and enthusiatic traveller. Wherever she goes – the United States, Canada, Australia – she cultivates lasting friendships with likeminded experts. These associations have enriched Carol’s treasure trove of recipes. She has not tired of learning and sharing food ideas. She now barters notes with the third son of Master Chang who owns the muchin- demand Kok Thai Restaurant in Ipoh. She moves in an intimate circle of life-long friends and together they quietly indulge their boundless joy of cooking. Carol is particularly happy about her Muhibbah meals that bring together at the dinner table the strengths of Malay, Chinese and Indian dishes.

Leading Malaysian newspapers have regularly featured her cooking columns. They have also published her insights into other aspects of the cultural scene in her home state of Perak. She has three children – Johnson (a businessman based in Bangkok), David (a scientist residing in Boston) and Christina, a trained nutritionist who prepared the nutritional notes and the glossary for this book. By Christina, she has a granddaughter, Dawn Yeoh Kah Yan. Carol Cheng Sun Mooi lives in Ipoh with her husband, William.