We have taken off! Tropical Spice Garden Cooking School has rocketed off the ground with an absolute blast this morning! A huge salute, wave, curtsey and bow to Chef Wan for putting everything in to his arrival for the launch today. With a painful backache he said this morning he made up his mind to [...]

We are absolutely delighted with Tropical Spice Garden’s new Cooking School [if we must say so ourselves]! Here we provide a sneak preview into the school layout prior to the official launching this Friday. The new school can accommodate up to 10 students and all abilities are welcome. We have put together a fantastic class [...]

Kenny was rather thrilled to find a new flowering plant on the 3rd spice  terrace in Tropical Spice Garden. He took a bit of time to identify the plant but finally he did and even more to his surprise when he realized it’s sub species name was named after me, Katharine! Well, of course it [...]

We’ve read about it, we’ve even seen it but we weren’t satisfied until we tried it ourselves. So today, on our wedding anniversary, we put our own baby boy on our matured Amazonica lily pads and I think most would agree, we passed the litmus test! Baby Nathanael, at 8kg was waded through the Tropical [...]

Tropical Spice Garden BFM radio interview with Katharine Chua Freda from BFM Radio station conducted the interview with me last Tuesday 12 April 2011. In all honesty, it was actually the second time we had done it as the station accidentally deleted the first interview. So we did it again and to my surprise it [...]

We welcomed Passion Trading on Wednesday evening to our Pavilion for the launching of their new product range “Authentic” by Davines. When I met the owner of Passion, I took one look at her and it suddenly all came together for me. Chin Teo was an old dancer friend of mine, back in the day [...]

The guides were treated to a day out with the infectiously, likeable Nyonya cook, Pearly Kee last Monday. In preparation for the upcoming Cooking School, we gathered all the guides and Pearly took them for a walk – a cooks perspective on our herbs and spices. As we set off, Pearly tugged my arm and [...]

With so many leaves falling in the gardens and the previous failed attempt of a compost heap in selected areas, Kenny has devised compost bins throughout the gardens. Litter bugs will be dealt with severely! [we are serious about our rubbish sorting!] – by Compost Kat, a pet name from my sister Roz – how [...]

We recently were donated a titan arum from a kind unidentified donor. Kenny had been looking for this species for a long time since we already have its sister species Amorphophallus paenifolious. Actually we were given 2 and one strangely disappeared much to Kenny’s  disappointment as these are extremely rare plants which are only found [...]

Absolute success! We just completed our 4 day eco kids sessions and I couldn’t believe that we could have packed so much in and still left tongues wagging for more. And I still can’t believe the energy levels of primary school children! In fact, one supporter of the gardens and workshops commented that we should [...]