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I have written many travel stories for newspapers and weeklies, covering a wide range of experiences. Included here is a special Mother's Day piece I did for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper.

Here's a selection of stories I have written for weekly and monthly publications, touching upon different issues.
 
MAGAZINES
 
Chef Morimoto

Masaharu Morimoto: An Iron Chef with a soft spot for sushi
Asian Gourmet Magazine

Masaharu Morimoto loves sushi, not only because the food represents Japanese cuisine at its finest, but because of childhood memories.

Morimoto, the 52-year-old star of the Iron Chef series on the Food Network, has a more profound connection to sushi than you could imagine. Growing up poor and unhappy, he remembers the serenity that would arise during his family's infrequent journeys to a sushi restaurant.

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Cottage home

Our Home and Chosen Land
Canadian Living Magazine

Recently, I was invited to my friend's place in Toronto for a celebration. During her first year in Toronto, my friend's Thai wife had lived the immigrant's experience of trying to find a job, make new friends and adjust to Canadian culture. The party commemorated her first two weeks of work – a temporary placement that had filled her with optimism. The party made me realize how lucky my family had been when we left Malaysia and came to Canada in 1976.

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Flamenco

Fire up the floor with flamenco
Scarlett

Who is that woman in the mirror? It was two months into my first flamenco lessons and as I moved across the room, my feminine form was moving in a way I'd never experienced before. I was a dancing goddess.

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Asian food

Tampopo
Food & Leisure

Tampopo is one of the ultimate movies for food and film mavens. Director Itami takes the viewer through a series of vignettes involving food, farce and some flights of fancy.

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NEWSPAPERS
 
My mom eating noodle

Remembering mother in the digital age
Toronto Star

I bought a high-end digital video camera last year to film a documentary about twin Bengali brothers headed to Norway in search of their Nordic roots. When I started filming the parents of the brothers, a thought came to me: If I'm doing this for Bengali twins looking for their Nordic roots, maybe I should do it for my own family and, specifically, my mother and the Malaysian dishes she makes.

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Syria

Syria: Love among the ruins
The Globe and Mail

I was sitting in a café in the middle of Syria's eastern desert, my singed right hand on a large frozen pack of green beans. My boyfriend and I were in the town of Tadmor, huddled next to the ancient site of Palmyra, dating back to the 2nd Century A.D. Palmyra was once a thriving, wealthy nexus, ruled by the Romans. A revolt lead by the legendary Queen Zenobia resulted in the city's burning. The defiant Zenobia was carried through Rome in chains.

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Local flower

A Lodge with a view to Bolivian life
The Globe and Mail

The world's largest rodent, the capybara, is within my reach. The size of a small pig, the snout-faced animal perches on the banks of the Tuichi River in Bolivia's Amazon basin. It stands still.

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Eggrolls

Eggrolls and Chicken Balls
The Globe and Mail

I picked up a copy of Amy Tan's The Hundred Secret Senses at a book exchange in Bolivia during a recent visit. It was a choice between that and the dozens of dog-eared murder-mysteries other travelers had left behind.

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