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Stress cooking while working from home, a Hong Kong professional gets in the flow, even screaming kids can’t distract her

  • Chinese Canadian finds cooking to be a form of meditation – ‘It takes your mind off of everything around you,’ Sherry Wong says
  • Covid-19 outbreak has ushered in a ‘golden age of baking’, says a counsellor, who likens stress cooking and baking to art therapy

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Global lockdowns have prompted a rise in home cooking and baking as people turn to their kitchens to de-stress – which is bringing families, like Sherry Wong’s, together. Photo: Felix Wong

Sherry Wong knows her way around a kitchen but didn’t do much cooking at home – until the coronavirus pandemic, that is. The Chinese Canadian has joined a growing number of people using cooking and baking as a way to destress.

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Like many people around the world practising social distancing, Wong is struggling to juggle working from home and helping her children with their schoolwork. “It’s an extraordinary situation that keeps changing all the time,” the Hong Kong property management professional, 43, said.

Cooking, she says, is soothing – not even her screaming kids can distract her when she is “in the flow”. Knowing she can feed her family meals they can savour, from a simple chickpea dish to a more complicated carrot cake, is very rewarding.

“It’s meditative,” Wong says. “You arrange your ingredients, make preparations and keep an eye on the timing. It takes your mind off of everything around you.”
On a recent weekend, Wong made this carrot cake. Photo: courtesy of Sherry Wong
On a recent weekend, Wong made this carrot cake. Photo: courtesy of Sherry Wong
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Her new-found passion for cooking has brought her family closer together.

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