Life after 40: Grandma reinvents herself as private dining host, cookbook author
Published on
19 Jun 2021
Published by
The Straits Times
SINGAPORE - Mrs Indra Iswaran is focused on swirling fermented rice and coconut milk batter in a frying pan, coaxing the mixture into a delicate, bowl-shaped South Indian pancake called appam.
Sunday Times photographer Chong Jun Liang gently reminds her to lighten up for the camera and she beams on cue.
"I've become a serious chef now, from a mother-chef," she says with a laugh.
Serious is an apt word to describe the 71-year-old's achievements.
As the private-dining host of Plantation Table by Lavindra Retreat, she has impressed hundreds of high-end corporate and incentive travellers at her Bukit Timah bungalow from 2017, before pandemic measures ground things to a halt.
When phase three allowed groups of up to eight, word-of-mouth recommendations saw her "frightfully busy" with bookings until August, but she has stopped serving her elaborate meals since phase two (heightened alert).
Her 2019 self-published heritage cookbook, They Came From Jaffna: A Historical Culinary Journey And Enchanting Tales Of Roots, Routes And Vivid Memories As Told By A Pioneer's Granddaughter, was feted at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2020. It was among the Best in the World winners in the India/Sri Lanka cuisine category.
While the vivacious host had entertained friends and relatives, her entry into private dining came about by accident. A friend, Ms Tahnya Butterfield, founder of Noshtrekker, a food travel experience company, persuaded her to open up her home, even though she was hesitant to charge strangers.
The experience gave Mrs Iswaran an outlet for her creative energy in her 60s, using "my dinner platters as my canvas".
Beyond just serving food, the history buff shares stories behind her dishes and ingredients, which she thinks made her stand out from other private-dining venues.
"It is the legacy that I want to introduce and leave behind. The legacy not just of my own community, but also the many communities here in Singapore and their home cooking," says Mrs Iswaran, who honed her palate on a melange of Asian cuisines growing up, including Ceylonese, Cantonese, Peranakan and Malay flavours.
Ms Butterfield also encouraged her to publish her cookbook, which Mrs Iswaran rushed out in about six months so her friend could see it before she died of illness in 2019, weeks before the book was launched by then Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat.
She received a grant from the National Heritage Board and did everything from the photography to overseeing the printing process.
"I am proof that a university degree is not all in life," she says of her "colourful, challenging and fulfilling" journey.
Born in Malaysia, she had wanted to be a textile designer, but was betrothed at 17. She learnt to cook from scratch when she lived in England, where her husband, Dr Lavan Iswaran, 86, studied obstetrics and gynaecology at Oxford University. There, she kept house and was schooled in medicine when she had to help him pen his thesis.
The couple later moved to Singapore and had four children, who are now aged 47 to 51. As her husband kept long hours at the then KK Hospital during Singapore's baby boom years, she single-handedly raised her young brood and kept faith despite "critical in-laws" who derided her lack of a degree.
In her 40s, she began to get involved in various projects, from helping to organise international medical conferences in the early 1990s, which she did without pay, to becoming the first female president of the Singapore Ceylon Tamils' Association from 1994 to 1996.
She also helped to conceptualise the design for the redevelopment of Sri Senpaga Vinayagar Temple in Katong, one of the oldest Hindu temples here, among other grassroots work.
The grandmother of seven says she is humbled by the Singapore 40-over-40 award, but adds: "There are many women who are out there on similar journeys as I have taken."
She encourages other women over 40 to live their dreams, like she has.
"After 40, I feel the beauty begins to shine from within, and the more we allow ourselves to be open to the world's stage of challenges, the more we women will thrive and become a noticeable presence for what we can give to society."
Source: The Straits Times © Singapore Press Holdings Limited. Reproduced with permission.
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