a feast FOR THE SENSES
Eccentric Su-yen was born in Hong Kong in 1974 to a Chinese mother, Fanny, and Scottish-South African father, Michael Thornhill. Her youth was brimming with culinary culture. “Mom is a cook. She always cooked, and tells us she was trained by some Cordon Bleu dude at some point. She’s very strict with her recipes, so she gets a bit stroppy with me when I just throw together whatever I feel like. She cooks Cantonese food, but also has very good European knowledge, so we had a full range growing up. Never fusion though – if it was English, it was English; if it was French, it was French.”
Su-yen’s not-so-accidental foray into cooking started early on in her life, when her mother lay down and announced dramatically: “I’m going to die now and when I die, your father is going to get snared by some awful woman from the
