The Hungry Mummies origin story

When people find out what I do for a living, they asked the inevitable question,

“What is your specialty?” 

I’ve always found it hard to answer this question, especially when this wasn’t a career that I set out to do. I certainly did not expect myself to be doing this for this long (9 years now).

The original Hungry Mummies

If you don’t already know the origin of Hungry Mummies, I’ll share it here. My background is in communications; marketing communications to be specific. After graduating from university, I started out with marketing communications in an events company that specialised in trade exhibitions. Early in my career, I moved around in similar positions, but mainly in the events industry. My last full time job was running regional events at a private wealth bank, where I did a lot of travelling.

When the kids came along, the traveling demands of the job made it really hard for me to be away from the kids. My then-husband also travelled extensively for work, and it just made sense that someone’s career took a bit of a backseat. So, in short, after my second child was born, I made the painful decision to stop working temporarily to raise young children.  

As much as I love my children, it was emotionally and intellectually difficult to dedicate all my energies towards them. I’ve always loved working and interacting with others. So, when my second child was a few months old, I started a Mums & Bubs cooking club on Meetup, where I could satisfy my need to be with other adults, but not just sit around and talk about our babies all the time. So Hungry Mummies was born. Mums would come with their babies, and a plate of food, and recipes to share with everyone. It was great. When the babies were BABIES, we would just sit around eating (hungry breastfeeding mums),  and talk about food and of course, our kids and our lives. As the group shared more about their lives, I learnt how many mums feel bad about not being able to cook and having to be dependent on their domestic helpers and/or parents and parents-in-laws for meals. That dependency also sometimes created friction in the household/family.   As the cooking club grew, there were also more and more Mums who said they would love to join, but they didn’t cook. Sometimes, mums brought some-thing store bought - and that was okay. I know how hard it is to get anything done with babies and kids in tow. I had created a safe space for mothers to connect and nourish their tired brains and bodies with food. I met so many mothers struggled with managing cooking and the demands and appetites of different family members, and I just thought that there must be some way I could help them overcome this fear of cooking or break it down so that it is not so stressful for them.

At the time, I was in no way the cook that I am now. In fact, I still don’t even consider myself a great cook. But I would say I am a competent cook.  So, at the urging and support of a friend (and initial business partner), we decided to start a business teaching people to cook. It helped that we had a ready market of mothers waiting to learn. 

When we started, we couldn’t think of a better name, and so we decided to keep Hungry Mummies as the business name, and in 2014, Hungry Mummies as you know it was born.  It started out mainly running private classes in our clients’ home, as it made sense to help them learn to operate in their home environments, and showing what was realistically possible in their personal set ups.   The private classes were a good way for us to get a better understanding of how different families operate. We got to nosy around and see what people have in their kitchen and fridges. We got to see how different families live. It really helped us gain deep insights in order to develop practical and customised meal plans.

After a year, my business partner and I went our separate ways, as there were other circumstances that needed her full focus.  I kept running with it, with whatever time and energies I could afford while raising young children. I devoted so many, many late nights trying to gain Hungry Mummies some traction. I was constantly in bed, with my lap top, working on new menus, updating the website, constantly pivoting based on what I had learnt and experienced on the job.  The time and monies spent on the behind-the-scenes work, is something that many underestimate with a start-up. 

My journey with Hungry Mummies was a slow, slow burn.  After 4 years raising children, I had become almost unemployable, despite all my efforts to try to rejoin the workforce. When I found myself as a single parent with the desire to be still be around for my kids, I had little to no choice but to ramp things up 300%.  When I moved out of the family home, I deliberately chose an apartment that would allow me to teach cooking from home. There was still little demand for private classes in clients’ homes. And knowing Singaporeans - they are usually very private about their home space, so running classes from my home kitchen felt like a no-brainer. It also didn’t make financial sense to start a physical studio, especially when I was still finding my feet as a single parent.

I pivoted and I pivoted and I pivoted. Up to this point, I was still teaching fairly “exotic” foods like Vietnamese, Thai, Indian or Western-styled dishes. I had not broken through to the Singaporean client.  And after various chats with the rare Singaporean clients, I realised that that I had being going about it so wrong.  Most Singaporeans live with their families until they get married - so they are often not allowed in the kitchen, and had their meals sorted out for them. If both parents were working, they had either a grandparent or domestic helper do all the meals. Or they would have tiffin meals catered for the weekdays and weekend meals were sorted outside the home too.  I was also in the food courts and hawker centres observing what people gravitated to.  Sure, clients want to be able to cook these exotic foreign meals, but the menus I was presenting lacked an emotional appeal. There was no familiarity with the type of dishes I had been presenting. So, as an experiment, I launched a few menus that taught Singaporean-styled home-cooking. To me, the menu looked “unsexy” as it was just the kind of food we would eat at home all the time, and that our mothers would make; and at the time, I felt like it wasn’t anything special. 

But boy, it took off.  There were clients signing up for the Singapore Home Cooking menus and be soooo excited to learn. They would tell me that this dish and that dish was their favourite dish growing up and they were so excited to be able to learn to make it. I was blown away. So, I kept coming up with menus that appealed to them on an emotional level.  As clients came through, I would ask them to share their food memories, and the foods that they ate growing up. I would ask for feedback on the challenges they faced in the kitchen, and offer little tips and hints to try to make their time in the kitchen a little easier.

This continuous feedback loop made me a better and better teacher.  It wasn’t until a few years ago that I realised that I AM a teacher, and not a bad one. Before that, I had considered myself as a business person.  If that were true - then I would also have sucked terribly at being a business woman, cause the scale in which I had chosen to teach is not the most profitable model (I don’t teach more than 6 pax at a time in my home kitchen).

It turns out that all my combined experiences has actually made me a more intuitive and empathetic teacher. I try to create a safe space where there is no judgement in learning and asking questions. I also try to create a joyful learning experience, so clients begin to associate what they would consider a stressful task as something joyful and nourishing for their soul.

In 2021, I also took a leap of faith in doing my a post-grad in education to help me become a better educator - and I continue to incorporate what I have learnt into my teaching practice, like incorporating more into my classes, particularly with children. Not just giving them hands-on experience, but also trying to strengthen their knowledge about food, and building their vocabulary around food and cooking. 

So, to answer the question of “What is your specialty?” 

My specialty, is making cooking accessible for those who want to learn.

I believe that everybody can learn to cook. As long as there is enough motivation and if you create a safe, loving and joyful environment for them.

So, what happened to the cooking club? Eventually, the babies became toddlers and started moving around too much for us to enjoy ourselves in a meaningful way, so it fizzled out over time. 

I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to do what I do, and still love it 9 years on. It’s a grind. But it’s an emotionally rewarding grind.