Her hands, as a child, were stained with turmeric's golden yellow. "I could smell my home long before I got there - the perfume of spices," says Christina Arokiasamy, a princess of the spice kingdom.
"My mother would call *come here and use your little hands to wash the turmeric'," says Arokiasamy, who now lives in Seattle in the US state of Washington.
"I had no friends at school because of my yellow hands and I smelt of spices. I was lonely, but my spices where my magic kingdom. I would run cardamom seeds through my fingers and think this is what snow must feel like. As a child of Malaya I had no idea of the cold."
Arokiasamy was recently in Bali for the launch of her first book, The Spice Merchant's Daughter.
Today she understands cold and the value of the bright red chilies that warm her even on frosty evenings - as do the more than 17,000 Washingtonians that have taken her cooking class.
Christina Arokiasamy was born into the fifth generation of spice traders. That tiny, dark-haired child who carried tiffin to the moneylenders and was an outcast at school because of the rich scent of spices that clung to her skin like smoke, is today a chef and gastronomy guide to Southeast Asia's Spice Islands. Her book is racing up US book charts.
Arokiasamy's earliest memories are of the bustle of Kuala Lumpur's central market, of women shopping accompanied by the whooshing, shimmering colors of their saris and the rich aromas of her mother's hand-mixed masalas.
"Spices are in my blood. My mother was a spice merchant and my father an Ayurvedic physician. As a little girl, this is all I knew. The merchants in the central market, my mother's spices, the bins of lentils with their chains of garlic hanging over them. The chatter of the merchants, the incense: It's a magical kingdom, the kingdom of spices. It was my Disneyland," says Arokiasamy.
In her book, Arokiasamy leads readers back along the spice shipping lanes into her kingdom of spices. She shares the recipes that have been brewing in her genetic makeup since her great-great-grandfather sailed the seas as a captain, trading spices for goods from China and Europe.
Her mother's masalas, and today her own, are based on ancient recipes handed down through those spice-trading generations.
"My great-great-grandfather was a ship's captain for the British East India Company. He was born in Southern India, sailing the route from India, through the Indonesian Spice Islands to the trading center of Malacca in Malaysia.
"He was bartering nutmeg, cinnamon and other spices for silks and porcelains, gold coins and other goods," Arokiasamy says, retelling parts of family history.
"My great-grandfather went to Burma as a spice merchant and a printer. He fled from there during the 1937 separation of Burma and India. A terribly frightening time. They arrived in Malacca with just the clothes on their backs. The port was already bustling with spice merchants as it had for hundreds of years."
Arokiasamy describes her world of spices as a magical fairyland heavy with the perfumes of Laos ginger, cardamom, coriander, fennel, chili, star anise and cinnamon. She speaks of the pepper her mother washed in a gunny sack in the river before slapping it against the side of their house to release the white pepper grains from their black shells.
"My mother was unlike other spice merchants. She would buy directly from the farmers or pick the spices herself. There were the huge cardamom pods, the chilies, the turmeric roots still covered in dirt," says Arokiasamy, explaining her mother would then dry and grind the spices "into these beautiful, brilliantly colored masalas: golden masalas, flaming reds, earthy browns and brilliant yellows".
"We ground them at the rickety old Ishweri Mill. My mother was like an army colonel, ordering the millers to add this or grind that into the masalas. She was not shy. The aromas and colors *of the masalas* were gorgeous. And these spices are what she sold in the central market."
Arokiasamy remembers the spices drying on zinc plates on every available surface in "this little colonial home in Kuala Lumpur. The zinc plates were given to my mother by a Chinese duck merchant who used the plates to cover the duck cages."
Her advice is abundant. Of star anise, that often bewildering spice, she says "fry it lightly with cinnamon in oil before you put in the meat. Always cook meat with star anise and cinnamon. Star anise adds complexity and flavors. From the moment you begin to cook you have beautifully perfumed meats."
She says kaffir lime leaves can be used to refresh discolored fruits, and says how "after a year *tired spices* need refreshing".
"Spices are dead organic matter. To revive the aromatic oils lightly dry fry the old spices. About a minute, or until they darken just one shade. The aroma will come back," says Arokiasamy of the spices she knows better than the back of her hand and describes as "my friends".
Moving from the spice stalls of Kuala Lumpur's central market to culinary master required Arokiasamy to take a short detour from spices in her late teens.
"I thought I wanted to be a journalist, so I studied at the University of Adelaide in Australia. Only problem was whenever I went on a story, I was covering food and beverages, I would end up in the kitchen washing chilies or talking with the chefs. I was a cadet and my seniors were not very pleased."
She later worked as a chef at the Four Seasons in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and Jimbaran, Bali, and at the Hyatt in Malaysia before heading to the States and, accidentally, establishing her cooking classes.
"I was in an apartment and was cooking for myself. People kept asking if there was a restaurant nearby and I said, sorry that's my place. I invited friends in to learn to use spices and that grew. For a time I was loading up my basket with fennel, coriander, cardamoms, chilies, my smelly terasi and fish sauces and driving across Washington State to teach people to cook. For free, not even enough to cover petrol.
"I just wanted people to discover the spices so anywhere there was a kitchen in Washington State, that's where you would find me,"
Through The Spice Merchant's Daughter she now introduces many more thousands of people to this princess' passion for spices, guiding them through their use and on gastronomic tours into the heart of her magical kingdom, the Spice Islands of Southeast Asia.
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