Mary Soh – Singaporeans in Victoria
Singaporean May Soh is the author of two cookbooks on Peranakan cuisine, ‘May’s Favourites’ and ‘High Tea with May and Friends’. Learning to cook authentic Peranakan dishes at a young age from her father, May remembers how her father never had a discouraging word or criticized her cooking. However if the food was not up to standard, her father would request that she cooked the dish again from scratch thus enabling her to hone her cooking skills. As a tribute to him and to ensure that her father’s recipes never got lost, May embarked on the writing of these cookbooks. The first book, ‘May’s Favourites’ has sold out twice and hopefully will go to print for a third time.
However May’s father John Soh’s real legacy is in the charitable work he started, ‘The Amazing Grace Ministry’ which has now passed on to his children and in particular May. His love for children and for the poor saw him undertake the task of raising funds to build an orphanage in Cambodia. However he was not able to see through this project, passing away while on a mission trip to Cambodia in 1995.
Today May carries on the work of her father raising funds to not only provide a shelter but also quality education for the children of the Koh Kong Orphanage in Cambodia.
