The popular contestant tells how he keeps the sizzle in his 30-year relationship with ‘soul mate’ Sally.
Kumar Pereira and his wife Sally seem like the most unlikely of matches. For one thing, the MasterChef Australia contestant was born in Sri Lanka and Sally
is from Essex in England, so their backgrounds could hardly be more different.
Yet the pair agree they’re a perfect match. “We are so very compatible,” says Kumar, 62, speaking from the couple’s Sydney home during a production break from the hit cooking show. “We click beautifully together. There is nothing I don’t like about Sally.”
“He is my best friend,” smiles Sally, 59. “And of course I love his cooking… but I would be so much thinner if it wasn’t for him!” It was “a hot summer’s night in Hong Kong” in 1981 when Kumar’s friendship with Sally finally grew into something more. Little did Sally know that 30 years later she would be living in Sydney with the man she fell in love with, and Kumar would be a star of the small screen.
“We were both teaching at Hong Kong Polytechnic University when we met – I was in graphics and Sally was in fashion,” Kumar says. Sally had started teaching while he was off sailing across the Atlantic, but her friends mentioned he was special and couldn’t wait to introduce them upon his return.
“One of my friends said, ‘You’ll love Kumar’ – and of course I did,” she says.
It took some time for the sparks to fly, though. The pair were friends for a year before they turned up the heat. “It was one hot steamy night!” Sally laughs. “Suddenly a beautiful friendship turned into a beautiful romance.”
An unusual Christmas present confirmed the couple were destined to be together forever.
Read more about Kumar's love story in this week's Woman's Day on sale June 27, 2011.
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