How I Do It All
plus a very good tuna salad that makes my day
People often ask me how I manage it all.
I usually pause for a moment. Not because I don’t know, but because the honest answer is neither impressive nor particularly strategic. It is mostly instinct, a bit of habit, and a refusal to overthink things too much.
As a writer, cookbook author, cook, mother of eight and entrepreneur, it is a question I am used to, and one I never quite know how to answer.
If I told my seventeen-year-old self that I would one day have eight children and live this life, I would not have believed it. And yet, in my high school yearbook, under “future ambitions,” it read: Message :‘‘Get real, be yourself and enjoy life (and food)!’’ & in future plans it said: To become editor-in-chief of top-selling international magazine’’. That was 1991. Some things, it seems, were already decided.
I was shaped by a French mother and a Chinese father, two very different sensibilities under one roof. As an only child, I had their full attention. My father cared above all about food. My mother was guided by beauty and elegance. Between the two, I learned early that life could be both disciplined and indulgent, and that a well-set table could solve more problems than one might think.
After writing four cookbooks on French and Italian food, I am now working on a new Chinese cookbook. It feels, in many ways, like a return.
My work consists of planning workshops, tending to new projects, recipe testing, cooking daily meals, and raising children who seem to move in every direction at once. People often say it looks like a lot. I hear words like brave, or sometimes they simply ask how it is all possible. The truth is, I never really thought of it that way. I chose this life, and over time it shaped itself into something that feels quite natural to me. I like the rhythm of it, the way one thing leads into another, even when it is a little chaotic, which, with eight children, it often is.
Of course, it is not always as composed as it may seem. There are days when everything overlaps, when nothing is quite finished, when I move from one thing to the next without much pause. Still, the question remains: how do you actually manage it all?
And then there are the children themselves, who are, in many ways, the truest centre of it all. They bring enormous joy, but they can also make my head spin. With children ranging from nine, eleven and fourteen to the older ones now at university, I am constantly moving between entirely different worlds of need and attention. One needs reassurance, another advice, another practical help, another simply to be listened to. At times I feel like a kind of family concierge, always on standby, ready to pull a small magic trick out of nowhere, usually involving lost homework, missing socks, or a sudden emotional crisis five minutes before leaving the house.
It takes a great deal of energy, because each child’s needs must be met differently. But I have also learned so much from raising them, and in some ways it does become easier with time. You become less reactive, more intuitive. You begin to anticipate things before they happen, almost like a game of chess, always thinking three steps ahead, though occasionally still losing to a nine-year-old.
Communication is the foundation of everything for us, and so much of that happens around the table. I will always reinforce the importance of sharing meals together, because it is there that conversations unfold naturally, tensions soften, and everyone comes back into connection. I also believe strongly in chores, in responsibility, and in encouraging independence from an early age. I am fortunate that the children are good students and very self-sufficient with their schoolwork. I keep an eye on everything, of course, but they have also learned to manage themselves well, which is something I value enormously.
So this is my day, more or less, as it unfolds.
Mornings begin early, usually with a glass of warm lemon water before the house fully wakes. Then it is the children. Sometimes I wake them, sometimes they are already up, moving around before I have even had a moment to myself.
Breakfast is important to me, simple but real. Egg sandwiches, Hong Kong style, porridge with honey, or yogurt with fruit and toast. Something that feels grounding before the day begins to accelerate.
I also like to give names to breakfast dishes. It is my small trick with the children, a way of making everything feel a little more special, and of opening their minds to places and memories beyond our kitchen. The Hong Kong style egg sandwich is my way of reminding them of the ones we had in a cha chaan teng, and “Japanese café waffles” somehow turn an ordinary morning into a small occasion. I even put on Japanese café ambiance music I found on Spotify, which I suspect I enjoy more than they do. Still, it works. And a little imagination goes a long way.
Then it is kisses and hugs, and they leave for school on the bus, my small daily miracle.
I have never driven a car since a severe accident in my early twenties. It is a chapter I quietly closed. Sometimes I even think that not driving has saved me an extraordinary amount of time, and possibly made this entire life a little more manageable. There is something quite efficient about not being the family taxi.
The house shifts into a different rhythm. My husband takes the dogs out for their morning walk, and for a brief moment everything feels still. That is when my day really begins.
I like that quiet transition into work. I start slowly, checking emails and easing into the day before turning to my manuscript. Writing a book requires discipline, but not in a rigid way. It is more about returning to it, day after day, even when the words resist a little.
In my case, writing is inseparable from cooking. Each recipe carries a memory, a story I want to preserve, and this Chinese cookbook feels especially close to me. I find myself returning to my childhood in Hong Kong, to the atmosphere, the flavours, the small details that shaped me without my realising it at the time.
It is emotional work, more than I expected. I lost both my parents in the past few years, and writing about that world brings everything back in a very immediate way. There is sadness in it, of course, but also a kind of comfort, as if I am keeping something alive through the act of writing.
Cooking has always come naturally to me. I go with the flow. It is instinctive. I can imagine the taste of things before they exist. Flavours have always been a central part of my identity. Give me fermented black bean sauce or a morel sauce with black truffles, and I can taste it in my mind at any moment.
Some people have a nose for perfume. I have a palate memory. It is my small superpower. My husband laughs about it because I am so easily triggered by a scent, a colour, a texture. It immediately makes me want to cook something, or return to a memory. I suspect it also drives him slightly mad at times.
I go to the farmer’s market in Porta Palazzo a few times a week, depending on the season. I like to walk through it slowly, watching, listening, taking everything in. It is often there that ideas begin. One ingredient leads to another, and suddenly a dish forms in my mind. It has always worked this way for me, moving through colours and scents, observing all the characters around me and listening to their conversations about what they will be cooking.
I find myself listening to the conversations around me and noticing how beautifully people speak about food here, about life, about everything in between. Recipes become stories, and stories become something almost philosophical. I listen, amused, and a little in awe.
The day moves between writing and cooking, often without a clear boundary between the two. I follow what feels right, capturing ideas while they are still fresh. There are photos to take as well. Most of the time, I am lucky to work with my husband Oddur, who is a very talented photographer.
We work together, think together, eat together more often than not. I loooove going to restaurants, truly, but I also love being home alone, cooking something simple just for myself. My husband, on the other hand, fully embraces the bon vivant life when it comes to lunch. He loves going out, discovering places, stretching a meal into something long and enjoyable. Between the two of us, it balances out quite naturally.
And here’s a part of my day that I value so much: every now and then, when I am not sacrificing lunch for a hot yoga class, which I absolutely love and need, and I find myself alone at home, I cherish the idea of a solo lunch. I enjoy the silence.
