It has been a long day. And I was lucky that I had a steaming bowl of porridge to comfort me. I boiled it and left it to steam before I left, so by the time I get back, it was ready.

I grew up eating porridge everyday. When I was young, Mum always cooked Babao porridge that contains 8 kinds of grains. Later in Singapore, I indulged my appetite in chicken congee, a common staple sold in hawker centre across the tiny island. And for myself, I experiment my porridge with all things imaginable: stubborn potato, zesty lemon or the down-to-earth meat floss. Porridge to me is not just childhood memory, but also a philosophy —- it manifests an attitude to life.

I choose my ingredients carefully. A simple oatmeal porridge or plain congee is simplicity. An organic bowl of beans porridge is the love for nature. The handful of grains, beans, and dried fruits is the essence of nature and has exposed me to an encyclopedia of health science. Barley nourishes the liver, sorghum the spleen, glutinous rice the lungs, and beans the kidneys. So when I stay up late, I buy beans and when the weather becomes unbearably sultry, I put in barley.

The cooking of porridge needs empiricism and here I share my insights. Oats can easily overboil and millet can stick at the bottom of your pot after prolonged heating. However, it is also about the undetermined. You never know at molecular level how the atoms are recombining into a new taste. Pinch some rose petals into your porridge, you delight at the refreshing taste. Cooking porridge has taught me to slow down, accept failure and stay open-minded to learn.

What’s more fascinating is that porridge can be a window to different cultures. When I was invited to dine at an expat’s, I found that Westerns love oats, but in China, porridge is never complete without rice. While in Singapore I could only find congee with chicken, fish or even shark meat. I enjoy every hearty bowl because it opens me to a new world of fine eating.