Thanh Lam: 'My lover blamed me for always inviting friends over to eat with him'

On the evening of July 17, Thanh Lam had a press conference at her newly opened restaurant in Hanoi. She gained 3 kg because she had to try many cooking recipes recently. During the meeting, Thanh Lam shared about her personal life as well as the joy of cooking.

Thanh Lam is dating a younger businessman from Hanoi. When asked what her boyfriend likes to cook, the singer said: "When we are in love, I find whatever the other person cooks delicious." When her boyfriend comes home tired from work, Thanh Lam only needs to bring him a bowl of hot noodles, tear some chicken from the fridge and add a can of beer, and he is satisfied. In return, the Vietnamese music diva also receives joy when her food and drinks are used up.

Thanh Lam is famous for her delicious cooking. Many people in the industry such as musicians Duong Thu, Quoc Trung, Hong Nhung, and My Linh have praised her culinary skills. The female singer likes to cook for many people instead of just her boyfriend. "I am often criticized for always inviting friends over to eat with me. I think that if I have to cook, many people should eat. So I invited my children and friends. The meal that started with two people had to be expanded to six people. I often say: 'That's how much effort you put into cooking'," Thanh Lam giggled. Only when she really wants to please her boyfriend will she go into the kitchen and cook for him. At times like that, she often treats him to seafood or her specialty dish, crab stewed with vermicelli in a clay pot.

The singer's dishes are often based on memories of Vietnamese food and the dishes her parents - musician Thuan Yen and Meritorious Artist Thanh Huong - cooked in the past. When she was young, Thanh Lam often had to help her mother wash dishes in the kitchen. The scent of spices, vegetables and meat from her mother's stir-fry method permeated the memory of the "glutinous, always hungry little girl" - as she called it.The singer remembers the meals when her family had to eat rice mixed with cassava. Her father lost all his teeth because of the frugal, nutritionally deficient diet he ate to save money for his wife and children. She said: "Every day, my father would bring home tiny pig's feet to stew with artichokes, and the two children, one nine years old and one seven years old, would eat quickly. In the mind of a child who loved to eat like me, the meals of that day were scarce but precious."

Being hot-tempered and irritable, when she enters the kitchen, her mood is often affected by the atmosphere of the kitchen. However, in recent years, she has learned how to balance her mind because if she lets negative thoughts influence her, all the food she makes will be "poison". She confided: "I learned this from Buddhism and taught it to my children. In their twenties, they understood the lesson about the importance of love - something their mother had to exchange for many life experiences to learn".

When mentioning her children, her voice softened. In addition to Hong Van (31 years old) - Thanh Lam's daughter with her first husband - who is living in Australia, she also has two children with musician Quoc Trung, including Thien Thanh (22 years old), who just graduated from the Vietnam National Academy of Music, and Dang Quang (20 years old), who is studying piano in Canada.

Since childhood, Thanh Lam's two children mainly lived with Quoc Trung and her paternal family. Thien Thanh and Dang Quang were not close to their mother in the most normal way like other families, so they always loved their sister. "I think that every mistake in life, you have to bear it yourself, including broken happiness. What I regret the most is that I did not fulfill my duty as a mother, letting my children grow up in a family with broken relationships. If I had enough awareness like now, I could separate myself from selfishness, maybe I could have brought a happier, more joyful life to my children," she confided.