Page 243 - AOE2018 Booklet

CHEf VIoLEt ooN

chef owner

Violet oon has been just about everything there is to be in the
food business – critic, author, publisher, speaker, teacher, television
presenter, restaurateur, consultant, and, of course, chef. one
of Singapore’s best known food personalities, she has met and
shared asian recipes and food tips with some of the top chefs in
the world.

Born to a peranakan family, Violet’s love affair with the kitchen
began when she was sixteen. it dawned on her then that if she did
not make the effort to document her family’s recipes and learn to
cook them, “there would come a time when i would no longer be
able to savour my favourite foods”, she wrote in the foreword to
her book peranakan cooking.

on graduating from the university of Singapore in 1971, Violet
joined the new nation newspaper where she wrote about music
and the arts. in 1974 she was asked by the paper’s editor to start a
food column – and so began her career in food. in 1987, after more
than a decade as a food columnist in newspapers and magazines,
she started her own publication, a monthly magazine called the
food paper that she produced for several years.
Violet has written three books - peranakan cooking, Violet oon
cooks, and a Singapore family cookbook. other books include
the curry cookbook, which she co-authored for a german
publisher; naturally peninsula, commissioned by the peninsula
hotel group of hong Kong; and cookbooks for tiger Beer and for
international enterprise Singapore (ie Singapore). over the years
she has appeared frequently on local and international radio and
television shows.