ANZA member Elena Scherer shares her 30-year Singapore food journey.

Elena Scherer, Director of Red Gum Foods, has lived in Singapore for 30 years – the longest she’s lived in any country. Having gone to school here as a teenager, she attended the University of North Dakota and returned to the island in 2001 to run her parent’s food importing business with her husband, Chef Roland Scherer. From her leafy Upper Bukit Timah home, Elena shares her connection to ANZA and Singapore’s food industry.

You might be familiar to many ANZA members as a soccer mum?
Yes! All three of my boys play football. Kieran (14) has been playing for about 10 years now, Conor (11) for six years and Jamie (9) for two. I’ve been team parent and team photographer, and they’ve travelled overseas to play – last year Kieran played in Spain. They’ve made great friends playing at ANZA and they all look forward to their games.

Why was your family originally posted to Singapore?
We moved to Singapore for my dad’s work. He was a Qantas pilot who retired in 1987. After nearly a year of being bored out of his cranium, he learned through the newspapers that SIA was taking retired pilots under the age of 60 He applied and was accepted, so in 1988 we moved here from Sydney. I was 15 at the time.

You’ve lived in this house before?
The house we live in now isn’t actually a childhood home, but I was living there with my parents in the late 90s. When we took over the company from my parents, it was just easier to stay where we were. We’ve made the space our own now.

What are your food memories of growing up here?
It was the best! I used to train dogs here with the German Shepherd Dog Club, and every Sunday after training we would go – dogs and all – to a different hawker centre for lunch. I got to try a huge range of food from intestines, to frogs, to squirrel. I reached a point where I stopped asking what anything odd actually was. I either liked it, or I didn’t!

How did Red Gum come about?
My mum started the company in 1989 when she saw a gap in the market here. In Australia she had been catering manager for stockbrokers JB Were & Son. When we moved to Singapore she saw none of the brilliant Australian products we all take for granted, and decided to remedy that by importing vegetables from Perth. When Roland and I took over the company in 2001 we had one driver, one truck, one merchandising lady, and a book keeper. We did less than 10 deliveries a day. Now we have a food production factory at Senoko and over 60 staff.

What do you love about working in the food industry in Singapore?
I love seeing the change from when I first arrived. Back then the only place to have a cappuccino was a five star hotel. In the 90s I once paid $15 for a cup! Singapore is now such an incredible, vibrant food city because Singaporeans genuinely love food and travel. When they travel they experiment and try new things, then many of those flavours or techniques find their way back here. It’s always changing and always interesting.

How do you enjoy working with your husband in the business?
Roland says that if anyone told him he would be working with his wife one day, he wouldn’t have believed them! He’s really taken on driving the company with new ideas and  concepts. When we started the company was straight up food importers. Now we produce our own antipasto, import olives direct from Greece and marinate them here to our own recipes, create salads, dressings, and all kinds of deliciousness!

How do you like to chill out with the family?
At home! After a crazy week of running around with work and the boys, and whatever else is going on, sitting down at home with a nice glass of wine while Roland prepares dinner is the best. I like to sit at the bar and chat with him while he cooks. It’s our time to reconnect and relax.

www.redgum.com.sg

Baker & Cook’s baking guru Dean Brettschneider talks to Pip Harry about his cooking school, the perfect burger bun and what’s next for his baking empire.

New Zealander, Dean Brettschneider, 49, is one of the world’s leading bakers, Alongside regular TV appearances and 12 best-selling baking books, he’s the brains behind Baker & Cook – a cosy neighbourhood chain of bakeries, where swarms of locals and expats line up daily for fabulous coffee, brunches, fresh artisan bread and glistening globally-influenced baked goods – from Aussie lamingtons to Italian bomboloni doughnuts and fluffy English scones. More recently Dean has opened Plank Sourdough Pizza and a new burger bar venture Moe and Joe’s, as well as returning to his teaching roots with Brettschneider’s Baking & Cooking School.

COUNTRY COOKING
Dean’s passion for food was born in his small rural hometown, Waikuku Beach, 30 kilometres north of Christchurch, where residents pickled, baked and home-cooked regularly. “My baking really did start with my grandmother and mother’s weekly biscuit tins,” says Dean. “On Sunday they baked for the week; cakes, cookies and slices. That was born and bred into me. ” When the local baker needed an apprentice, Dean signed up and found his calling. After stints in Europe to hone his baking skills, three years running award-winning Windsor Cakes bakery in Dunedin and time in research and development, Dean was ready for something new. After visiting a friend in Singapore he had a lightbulb moment to open a bakery here.

RECIPE FOR SUCCESS
Back in the early days of Baker & Cook, Dean had enough time on his hands to run ad hoc cooking classes after hours. “When I got to Singapore, I had one little bakery in Hillcrest Road, and to fill my day in I started doing baking classes in the back room. From 4pm in the afternoon until 3am in the morning, the place was relatively empty. So, I pushed tables aside and randomly put on my newsletter for people to come and bake with me, first in, first served.” Teaching came naturally to Dean. “I taught part-time at the local TAFE when I was in my twenties. From a young age I had it in me to share my knowledge about baking and cooking – which only grew as I moved into commercial test kitchens, wrote cookbooks and found myself in front of the camera.”

BUILDING A BUSINESS
As Baker & Cook took off and Dean opened more stores, he found himself getting too busy to run baking classes, despite demand from his customers. When a former beauty salon came up for rent behind his Hillcrest bakery, Dean snapped it up. “Baking was on the rise,” says Dean. “People wanted to learn how to bake, so I decided to put a school there.”

BEST IN CLASS
Brettschneider’s Baking & Cooking School now offers a range of classes – from Classic Cakes to Proper Pies and Tarts, Vegetarian Cooking and Healthy Eating. “I’ve got a great team of tutors, bakers and cooks that work with me and we limit our classes to maximum 15 participants, so you go away with not only the recipes, but hands-on experience. We tailor make our classes and cater to all levels of experience.” Baking remains the main drawcard. “Baking is a global phenomenon now. But when I published my first baking book 18 years ago, baking wasn’t trendy. In fact, it was the last thing that people wanted to do!” laughs Dean. “Now, baking is by far our most popular set of classes. We offer bread baking, sourdough, advanced bread baking, grains, deli style, sweet breads, eclairs, mousse cakes, Danish pastries and croissants…we uncover all aspects of baking.”

NEXT VENTURES
After mastering baking and pizza, Dean is biting into the burger market. “We’re opening a new venture called Moe and Joe’s Sourdough Burgers in Greenwood Avenue,” says Dean. “It’ll be a small burger joint focusing on good, honest burgers with an old-fashioned hamburger bun, with maybe 10 per cent sourdough in it.” Dean isn’t a fan of the soft burger bun. “It’s become fashionable to make burger buns out of super sweet brioche doughs, and then you need a soup spoon to eat it because it’s drenched!” he says. “We’re going to deliver our burgers to you in a good state, with a bun that doesn’t fall apart in your hands. You can add sauce, and as many gherkins as you like afterwards!”

KEEPING IT SIMPLE
Baker & Cook continues to grow, with more stores planned in Singapore, Saudi Arabia,
Abu Dhabi and Kuala Lumper, as well as three existing stores in Manila. Dean says the recipe for business success is simple. “My business philosophy has always been about local neighbourhoods, and people. My food philosophy is about being honest. Baking ingredients are so straightforward – flour, butter, sugar – I just try to keep things simple, combined with some fun. Not too complicated.”

SINGAPORE’S FOOD SCENE
Dean finds Singapore’s food scene exciting. “It’s a foodie heaven. We’re lucky to have everything on our doorstep here, from fine French food, Indonesian, Italian, good hawker food. That’s what I really like – the incredible variety. I do try not to allow my product to be influenced by local flavours though. People come to me because I offer the very best of lots of tastes from around the world. You won’t see me baking up a local bun or soft bread. One of our biggest days of the year is Chinese New Year and my customers don’t come for pineapple tarts, they come to get away from pineapple tarts!”

To get schooled with Dean and his team of chefs, pastry chefs, cooks and baristas, head to bakingandcookingschool.com

Whether you’re new in town, or heading back to your homeland, here are five authentic Singapore food experiences you have to tick off your bucket list.

1. Hokkien Mee
This beloved Singapore noodle dish is the creation of post-war Hokkien noodle factory workers, who would gather along Rochor Road and fry any excess noodles they had. Cooked in a fragrant stock, Hokkien Prawn Mee is made with a mix of thick yellow and vermicelli noodles, large prawns and slices of squid. The dish is covered in a rich prawn stock, typically made from pork bones, prawns, anchovies and, in some cases, dried oysters. Add a squeeze of lime and sprinkle of chilli to taste.
DIG IN: Kim’s Famous Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee, 62B Jln, Eunos

2. Chilli Crab & Black Pepper Crab
There are two ways to enjoy this delicious crustacean. Chilli Crab is served swimming in a mild, sweet, chilli-tomato sauce, or opt for the more robust black pepper sauce. Don’t forget to dunk your fried mantous (steamed or fried white buns), into the rich, luscious sauces.
DIG IN: Long Beach Seafood, various locations, longbeachseafood.com.sg

3. Laksa
This Peranakan dish fuses Chinese and Malay cuisine into one delicious, steaming bowl. Traditional Singapore curry laksa is made with generous amounts of chilli, vermicelli, coconut milk, bean curd puffs, fish, shrimp and sometimes cockles. Singapore style Katong Laksa has chopped up vermicelli so slurp it with a spoon, not chopsticks!
DIG IN: 328 Katong Laksa: 51/53 East Coast Road, made famous by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay!

4. Satay
No Singapore food list would be complete without satay. These delicious sticky skewered meat morsels originate from Indonesia, and have been adopted by Singapore. Choose from chicken, beef, mutton and pork and your order will be grilled to perfection on an open charcoal fire. Spicy peanut dip, pressed rice cake, onions and cucumbers are usually served
on the side.
DIG IN: Satay by the Bay, 18 Marina Gardens Drive; East Coast Lagoon Food Village, 220 East Coast Parkway

5. Carrot Cake
Not to be confused with the sweet cake with cream cheese frosting, Singapore’s Carrot Cake is a stir-fried dish made of steamed cubes of soft rice and radish “cake”, garlic, eggs, preserved radish and sometimes oysters and prawns. Brought to Singapore by Teochew immigrants, the moreish dish is now a hawker staple and variants include the ‘black’ version, which is laced with dark soy sauce.
DIG IN: Bukit Merah View Hawker Centre, Carrot Cake stand #01-37