Quan Yifeng Learned How To Cook So She Could Prepare Meals For Her Daughter Eleanor Lee In China
The host has gone from being unable to cook even instant noodles to helming her own cooking show with her daughter.
For Quan Yifeng and her daughter Eleanor Lee, one good thing that came out of the whole awful COVID-19 situation, is that they got to spend a lot more time together.
Eleanor, 20, has been based in China working as actress since she shot to fame overnight with her viral Apple commercial in 2015 and has lived apart from her mum for more than four years. She is also currently enrolled in the prestigious Beijing Film Academy, which boasts an impressive alumni, that includes some of China's biggest stars like Yang Mi, Liu Yifei and Vicki Zhao.
But with classes moved online and her filming schedules pushed back due to the pandemic, Eleanor returned home to Singapore, where she has filmed a handful of productions, most of which involve her mum.
YiFong and Eleanor’s Kitchen, which, as its name suggests, sees the pair baking, boiling and brewing up a storm in the kitchen. They’ve also invited guests who have played an important role in their lives, including actors Elvin Ng and Christopher Lee, as well as Eleanor’s godfather Addy Lee, whose surname she has taken.
During our conversation, Yifeng was as animated as ever, while Eleanor was like an anchor to her mum's motorboat-like energy. The younger star also seemed perfectly at home letting her mum do all the talking, and would only respond when we directed a question at her. When she did respond, she was lively and self-assured and very much like the level-headed old soul Yifeng often describes her as.
Eleanor and Yifeng aren't two peas in a pod
While it's not the first cooking show Yifeng has hosted before, we sure didn't expect her to get behind the wok. “I’ve never been one to spend time in the kitchen," agreed Yifeng. "I’ve spent 40 years of my life not cooking, and I didn’t even know how to cook instant noodles. I never felt the need to learn how to cook because it’s so easy to just eat out or get food delivered.”
So what made her decide to pick up cooking, then?
“The first time I started to cook was when I went to China to visit Eleanor about five years ago. Every parent with kids living overseas will know that your children will definitely miss the food from back home. I somehow felt like I wasn’t sincere enough when I was there because I couldn’t prepare all the things she missed. It’s a great source of comfort for anyone living overseas for a loved one to visit and cook for them.”
So Yifeng summoned all the knowledge she picked up over her years of hosting cooking shows, along with the power of the internet for simple recipes, which she tweaked to Eleanor’s liking.
Yifeng on one of her many visits to China to see Eleanor
“It wasn’t great at first, but it was edible, I guess?” Yifeng laughed. “I’ve definitely gotten better over the past few years.”
Vouching for her mother’s cooking skills, Eleanor shared that there were no epic failures in the kitchen, and that her mum’s sincerity in wanting to prepare a homecooked meal for her was what mattered most. Yifeng can now cook “almost anything” she sets her mind to, be it comfort food like lu rou fan and curry, to simple western cuisine.
However, Yifeng's newfound passion for cooking hasn’t quite rubbed off on Eleanor. “I learned a lot about cooking on the show, but I still won’t be doing it on the regular. Firstly, I’m not good at it, and secondly, I simply have no interest,” she chuckled.
Working together professionally also meant that Yifeng had to put aside all professional bias she has towards Eleanor. “She’s my daughter, but when we’re at work, she’s someone with decades less experience than I do. She’s been acting in China, but when it comes to variety shows, she’s so new to this that I had to monitor her progress and steer her in the right direction," she said.
Will we be seeing Yifeng and Eleanor on screen together again?
So how did her daughter fare as a host? “Not bad”, Yifeng said. "She was nervous at first, but learned how to act in a way that the cameras would focus on her. Even then, I don’t think she has the flair for it. There are just some things you have to be born with."
Eleanor then chimed in to defend herself. “I wasn’t nervous. I was struggling with how much of my true personality I should show. A lot of the guests are my mum’s friends and colleagues, so I need to have a certain amount of respect for them. I had to control myself and not be as wild as I’d normally be.”
Wild?
“When I say ‘wild’, it’s not like I’d go crazy, but I had to maintain a certain level of decorum because I can’t just treat them as how I would treat a friend who’s of the same generation as I am. After all, most of the guests watched me grow up," she clarified.
So would mother and daughter consider working together again? Well, yes, and no. “I’m her mum, so most of the time, I already know the answer to the questions that I have for her," said Yifeng. "It’s challenging for me because I need to come across as someone who doesn’t know everything about her. But at the same time, it’s easy because I know how to lead her to talk about things that I want her to talk about.”
Eleanor concurred: “It’s been great working with my mum because I get to spend more time with her, but I think my interests still lie elsewhere, not quite in variety.”
Catch YiFong and Eleanor’s Kitchen Mondays at 8pm on Ch 8. You can also watch past episodes of the show on meWATCH.
Photos: Quan Yifeng's Instagram, Mediacorp
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