Kitchen

Sherwin Ko: Modernizing Ge Lai Through Ahmah Shirley’s Specialties

by Kevyn Gohu
February 28, 2025

Paying homage to his mom and other ahmahs out there, Sherwin Ko opens the home kitchen Ahmah Shirley’s Specialties, specializing in Ge Lai recipes to help postpartum moms.

Whenever families hear about Chinese food, it’s either the usual Chinese, Taiwanese from the milk tea stores, Cantonese in some kitchens, and recently, the popular Sichuan for hotpot restaurants. So when mechanical engineer-turned-chef and dad Sherwin Ko decided to open the Chinese Ge Lai home kitchen, Ahmah Shirley’s Specialties, it was a good idea — business-wise and family-wise!

“It was really hard to find ge lai food delivered to your doorstep,” Sherwin explains his reasoning. “So, when we started Ahma Shirley’s Specialties I told Jenny we had only one real competitor — other Ahmas!”

Ahmah Shirley's Specialties Owner Sherwin Ko

What “Ge Lai” Does

The traditional Chinese practice of Ge Lai (Hokkien)/ Zuo Ye Zi (Mandarin) is often known as a thirty-day regimen to nurse moms back to health postpartum. It would consist of various practices such as eating nourishing meals that would, as Sherwin Ko explains, ‘return the yang energy to re-balance the yin energy.’ Though achieved through various means, food plays a crucial in replenishing vital nutrients lost during childbirth. It’s most especially a bonus if the food tastes yummy!

“The food’s designed to restore whatever nutrients a mother has lost giving birth,” Sherwin explains. “But the goal of most mommies who actively want to go through ge lai is to try and return their bodies to their previous state before getting pregnant, while simultaneously being able to provide nourishment to their newborn.”

While Ge Lai dishes are most commonly associated with postpartum recovery, their benefits also help people who’ve just come from an operation. The only difference for the non-postpartum customers, Sherwin reveals, would be the choice of dishes that could best address the issues. “Since I’m not a dietitian nor a nutritionist, it’s usually a lengthy discussion as to what dishes they want or need to avoid as per their doctors.”

Ahmah Shirley's Specialties - Yochi Misua

Learning Ge Lai with Ahmah Shirley

But like most traditions, families who follow Ge Lai may have their own interpretations. Some prefer starting the practice a week after the mom gives birth. Others limit their food choices during the first month of postpartum. However, Sherwin points out that all these decisions and traditions should adhere to one thing in mind: improving the mom’s overall well-being.

“There’s no fast or hard rule when following Ge Lai. So, we usually tell them that it’s okay to follow their family’s traditions,” he explains. “But we also remind customers that in any Ge Lai practice — the physical and emotional well-being of the mom comes first.”

So when his wife, Jenny, gave birth to their son, Jace in 2019, Sherwin followed his family’s version of Ge Lai. What better source for him to learn the Ge Lai practices and recipes than from his mom, Ahmah Shirley herself? “She flew to Cebu and stayed with us for a few weeks. I then asked for some of her Ge Lai recipes so that I could continue cooking them for Jenny.”

These recipes would then become the foundation of their home kitchen, Ahmah Shirley’s Specialties. As the little business grew, so would their menu of choices for Ge Lai.

A Menu Built By Generations of Ahmahs and Moms

While some of the popular Ge Lai recipes on Ahmah Shirley’s Specialties‘ menu like the Yochi Misua and Lapu-Lapu Soup are his creations, the other dishes on the menu were recreated from the memory of his late paternal grandmother. One of the more popular choices, the Black Chicken Sesame, was a dish Sherwin Ko remembered as not only nutritious or very ‘po‘ for new moms but for growing kids too!

Sherwin explains. “When we were kids, I distinctly remember being served, among plenty of other dishes, a stewed version of black chicken in soy sauce. That’s where the inspiration for our Black Chicken Sesame came from. My Ahma also used to cook a lot of yochi and sibut soup for us as they supposedly help kids grow taller.”

Despite how nutritious the Ge Lai dishes are, they all require a daunting amount of prep time, meticulous effort, and fresh ingredients. But after five years of cooking with some of the recipes being a daily essential on the dinner table, Sherwin Ko reveals that the secret to it all is just coming up with proper time management. There can be no shortcuts, he emphasizes.

“I always cook fresh, especially for fish, seafood, and offals. Luckily those are the easiest (time-wise) to cook,” he explains. “Poultry can be prepared beforehand, usually cleaned and gutted ready to cook. Herbs can be soaked overnight, stock can be boiled in batches, and spices can be portioned in advance. But the proteins themselves are always cooked fresh. Ahmah Shirley used to say that every time you reheat food you lose a little bit of the nutrients.”

Picking up the skills for Ahmah Shirley’s Specialties

However, the passion for culinary wasn’t something Sherwin Ko picked up overnight. In fact, it started as a passing suggestion in a conversation between him and his wife, Jenny, during the pandemic lockdown in Manila. While one would return to the corporate world, the other would start a business. Although Sherwin knew he wanted to return to the food industry, he didn’t expect himself to be the one doing the actual cooking.

“Jenny suggested it one day, ‘Why not try making Ge Lai food?'” He recalls with a light laugh. “To this day I’m not sure if she was just joking, but here we are!”

Before Sherwin could start testing out recipes, he had to learn the basics. Although he was a mechanical engineer who worked in supply chains and logistics for close to a decade, Sherwin found cooks who were very willing to teach him back at the café he handled in Cebu.

“I learned mostly the basics from them,” Sherwin explains. “But later on, cooking developed into a passion. Since my day job involved traveling a lot around the Philippines, I made sure that at every stop I tasted something new. If I liked it, I tried recreating it and kept learning recipes by myself.”

As his mental cookback expanded, Sherwin realized he could offer his expertise to other restaurants. ” I have also very recently started offering professional services to restaurants — conceptualizing their menu, training their cooks, and delivering pre-prepared dishes.”

Challenges of a Home Kitchen

Although the trial-and-error process for the recipes was taxing, it was the limited kitchen space that posed an even greater challenge. When the news spread that Ahmah Shirley’s Specialties specifically focused on Ge Lai recipes, many younger Chinese parents eagerly ordered the dishes that shaped their childhood. The surge of orders was a welcome sight but one that Sherwin Ko had to manage via a slot system.

“The biggest disadvantage for us is the limited kitchen space. We can only serve so many customers a day and that’s why we have a two-day lead time for planning. We’ve rejected and rescheduled a lot of customers because of limited slots and it always didn’t sit well with us,” he admitted.

But with proper time management and occasional help from his siblings and Ahmah Shirley, Sherwin’s home kitchen continues to serve all the moms who trusted the Ge Lai diet to nurse them back to health postpartum.

Ahmah Shirley's Specialties - Black Chicken Soup

Ahmah Shirley’s Specialties: A Homage To Generations of Moms

As Ahmah Shirley’s Specialties grows, Sherwin Ko draws inspiration from his reason for starting the home kitchen. “When I started Ahmah Shirley’s Specialties, it was to pay homage to my mom, and all the other Ahmas and moms out there tirelessly preparing homecooked meals day in and day out.”

However, homage doesn’t mean adhering to every practice. Ge Lai, Sherwin assures, can be flexible especially if it will make moms feel better. “Our advice would always be ‘A happy mommy is a healthy mommy and a healthy mommy is a healthy baby.’ You don’t need to follow everything to the T. If you don’t eat yochi, don’t eat yochi and order something else. If you’re thirsty and you’re done with your tea then, have some water. Listen to your body, and don’t push yourself too hard. At the end of the day, good food and sufficient rest are still best.”