“My life isn’t that interesting,” says chef Euphemia Ng. Then she starts telling her story—and quickly proves herself wrong.
“I was an active 3-year-old, and my grandmother took me to the farmers market in Hong Kong every morning so my aunts could sleep in,” the Tierrasanta resident recalls. “She showed me how to look for the squashes with the fuzzy hair on the stems. That means it’s fresh. My father also had a catering business, and I would help him pick out what he needed for events. Even though I was surrounded by fresh food then, my real interest in high school was graphic design. So, I came to San Francisco to major in graphic art.”
It was the 1960s, and graphic design was a boys’ club—but that didn’t phase Ng. After she graduated, she got married and, in 1974, moved to San Diego, where she worked with Calvin Woo, now the executive director of the local Design Innovation Institute. When her husband was killed in a car accident in 1979, she took time off. A hospital trained her to be a chaplain and grief counselor. The experience inspired her to become a licensed therapist in 1992, working with refugees and homeless individuals.
Two decades ago, she met chef Bernard Guillas, former executive chef of the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club, at a cooking class, and yet another chapter began. She now helps out chefs all over town, including Travis Swikard of Callie and Deborah Scott of Cohn Restaurant Group.
“I learned from the best,” she says. “I work special events like Restaurant Week, Celebrate the Craft, [and] Olivewood Gardens’ charity events.”
Scott calls her the Lemongrass Lady, after the edible plants she cultivates at home. “The herbs at the store are lousy and expensive,” she declares. “So I grow my own—lemongrass, makrut, yuzu, Japanese myoga—and give [them] to local restaurants.”
She spent her 76th birthday cooking at the Graze at the Fields event in Carlsbad in April.
“This is so much fun. It’s not work for me,” she says. “I can be creative—plating a dessert is like graphic design. It’s attention to detail, art, execution, positive and negative space, and balance.”
