"I've been offered lovely jobs that involved relocation and travelling. But I couldn't take them up because of my son.

"Decisions will now revolve around Jaan. His happiness and growing up grounded are my priorities now."

In FairPrice Family Cook Off, eight families of four will compete for the title of Singapore's best family of cooks.

Malaysian food critic Fay Khoo will be judging based on each family's ability to come up with fresh meal ideas every week.

The winning family gets a 10-day all-expenses paid trip to Tasmania and complimentary lessons at a gourmet cooking school.

Online registration at www.cookoff.com.sg ends on Wednesday.

This is Gill's first bilingual show and she admits she doesn't understand a word of Mandarin.

But she's not worried as her co-host is fluent in both English and Mandarin.

"The challenge is not repeating what the other person has said. Many bilingual shows are guilty of that. I think we're going to be free-wheeling a lot. It's a matter of working out how we do it."

One wonders if Gill will fare better this time.

Awkward

Back then, on The Weakest Link, she would make pungent comments like "Who should be spurted out of the Merlion?", "Did some of you leave your intelligence on the MRT?" or "Who should be cast in stone at the Haw Par Villa?"

For the record, Gill acknowledges they were "stupid one-liners".

The Weakest Link originated in the UK and its host Anne Robinson was so notorious for her acerbic remarks, she earned the title Queen of Mean.

In the local version, which had a top prize of $1 million, eight contestants voted off one of their own in successive rounds of trivia questions until one winner was left. Gill would even hear contestants stung by her caustic remarks bad-mouthing her over their microphones which, unknown to them, were still switched on, she said.

But a cool Gill didn't flinch.

Although contestants knew what they were in for, she acknowledged it was "unfortunate they had to hear these stupid comments".

"They felt awkward and I felt awkward for them. But I had a blast in the show. The crew were amazing. I learnt so much."

She knows that netizens have called her all sorts of names and the public may still think she's cold and mean.

Yet she is taking it all in her stride, shrugging this misguided perception off as "unfortunate".

"Honestly, that's so far from the truth. I don't care, as long as my family and friends know I'm not like that. You can't take things personally."

Gill, who was born and educated in Britain, also had to punctuate her sentences with Singlish to add local flavour to the show which originated from the UK.

She admitted that speaking Singlish was weird because "it didn't make sense".

The Weakest Link concluded after a paltry 13 episodes.

She bristled a little when the show was repeatedly mentioned during the interview.

Ten minutes into the conversation, she cheekily asked in her crisp British accent: "We're rather obsessed with that show, aren't we? You mean no one remembers me from Lonely Planet Six Degrees?"

Gill had nabbed the 2004 Asian Television Awards' Best Entertainment Presenter for the travelogue which aired on Discovery Travel and Living (StarHubCh427).

Before that, she made her name back in 1999 as a Channel [V] VJ when she hosted shows like Asha Meets and By Demand and interviewed pop stars like Britney Spears and Lenny Kravitz.

These days, she bakes when she's down because she said "it lifts my mood" and is "a form of meditation" for her.

She doesn't refer to recipes. Instead, she recreates a dish and improvises on classics like Moroccan stews and ratatouille.

One constant in her culinary expeditions is chilli. Even little Merjaan likes some in his.

"Asian defines most of what I cook. I'm a chilli addict. Even my simple pastas have chilli. Merjaan likes the warmth chilli gives."

<< BACK | Ex-Weakest Link host Asha Gill is back in new cooking show

This article was first published in The New Paper.