Official's $30,000 cookery class in France draws ire

A Singaporean bureaucrat who wrote about taking his family on an expensive cooking course in France has sparked ire from locals, with some accusing him of extravagance given the city-state is in recession.

Tan Yong Soon, a senior official at Singapore's Environment Ministry, learnt to truss chicken and cut vegetables at Le Cordon Bleu cookery school in Paris with his wife and son, and wrote about it in the Straits Times newspaper earlier this month.

"Taking five weeks leave from work is not as difficult as one thinks. Most times when you are at the top, you think you are indispensable. But if you are a good leader who has built up a good team, it is possible," Tan wrote in the newspaper.