Here.

I invite everyone to join me for an ASMR hand exercise routine.

Through this exercise, we will examine and reflect on our current life in the spirit of collective cooking and self-care.

Are you ready?

Let's warm up by taking a deep breath.

Breathe in.

Expand your body.

Breathe out.

Relax.

Make your breath audible.

This is the sound of your unique existence.

Keep breathing.

You don't have to close your eyes.

In fact, take a deeper look at your surroundings.

Breathe in.

Take them all in.

Breathe out.

Maybe we feel a little closer as we exchange air.

Let's take a loud breath together.

This is our existence.

That's what it sounds like.

Now bring your hands up.

Look at them.

What did they do today?

Do they remember?

Can they hold memories?

Shape your hands like claws.

Do they remember digging tunnels for the railroads?

The railroads that were so long and so cold that were built by the Chinese immigrants.

Move your fingers.

Grab the air.

Are these hands still trying to carry the luggage and livelihoods that were left behind by the Japanese Americans during World War Two?

Now overlap your palms and slowly fold over the fingers.

Have they held the groceries from the farms and canneries that were powered by migrant workers from the Philippines, Mexico, Central and South America?

Open up your palms.

Where did we get our hands from?

Do they remember the dreams from our ancestors?

Do they still know how to play?

Now hold one hand out.

Slowly extend your finger.

With the other hand using one finger yrace each finger up as you breathe in, down as you breathe out.

We're going to do this in five deep breaths.

Let's start from the beginning.

It was nice to make sourdough bread during those zoom meetings.

Isn't the British Bake Off such a sweet show?

Do you remember how Jeremy Allen White's hair so greasy and his arms are so juicy?

We love cooking.

Yet we don't have time for it.

When we are consuming the aesthetics of the kitchen what do we actually crave?

Now take both of your hands out.

Spread your fingers as far apart as you can.

When you think you've got them spread as far as you can, spread them a little more.

Feel the stretch.

Now you can relax your hands and bring them up in the air.

Show them off like a magician proudly finishes the trick.

Maybe you can still feel a little bit of the remaining soreness from last stretch.

But look at them.

Be proud at the magic that you've created with your hands.

These empty yet powerful hands.

These things can control tools and turn off AI.

Can make poetry.

Can offer a massage.

Can hold one another and give warmth.

Now we're going to press our palms together.

Wrists towards your chest.

Your fingertips upward.

Namaste.

We greet with our hands.

Slowly we're pulling them apart, away from each other.

Collide to compress and explode a small air bubble between the palms.

Let's do one more time.

Repeat.

Let's clap for our hands.

Thank you.

Wow.

It's like raining and storming and you guys still showed up.

It's so impressive.

But you didn't come here to see me.

So let me introduce my panel.

First person she owns Musang and Kilig.

Two times James Beard nominee.

And she was recently named one of Food and Wine best new chefs in America.

Melissa Miranda, please join me on stage.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Just get it right.

Next panelist is also a James Beard nominee.

In fact, she's been a James Beard nominee so many times, we've lost track.

Now I've been joking.

I think nine.

But she is humble.

She thinks a lot less.

I think it's nine times it's not.

It's it's been many times, let's put it that way.

But at least nine times.

She owns Joule and Revel two critically acclaiomed restaurants.

And she recently opened up Paper Cake Shop, which you've had out there.

Rachel Yang, please join us.

And last but not least, I can say I know him when because I usually drink at Oliver's Twist a lot.

And he was a bartender.

And apparently he loved the place too, because he end up buying Oliver's Twist.

And he didn't stop there.

He opened the Sophon.

Excuse me.

Yes, yes.

All right, I'm up.

Are you good?

Which was recently named Bon Appetite one of the 20 best restaurants in America.

20 best new restaurants.

Karuna Long please join me.

I'm so glad you're here because I think one thing that we have to talk about is Chinatown International District.

I drive here every day, and I hate to start on such a bad note, but it depresses me these days because Chinatown look a lot like any other neighborhood during the pandemic.

But the difference is, other neighborhoods have seemed to recovered.

But Chinatown hasn't.

It still looks the same to me.

So I want to get your thoughts on that.

Rachel, you had a good way to break this down.

First off, I think, which is fair to say that Fremont, where your restaurants are, has rebounded.

That can mean, as rebounded better.

I think the community sort of looks normal now over there.

Exactly.

You had a good way of explaining this.

So what are the types of businesses in Chinatown?

Yeah.

Well, we don't have a restaurant in Chinatown, so I probably am not the best person to talk about it.

But what we are noticing is also the fact that, you know, there seems like there's a change of guards happening in Chinatown.

You know, a lot of older mom and pops restaurants are starting to fade away, and a lot of younger new ones are coming up.

But still, it's such a traditional time.

It's hard to say whether where you're going uprising or not in that area.

Yeah.

Karuna.

I want to get your thoughts.

So do you agree with me that Chinatown hasn't bounced back like other communities, neighborhoods like Fremont and Phinney?

I think comparatively to, like Phinney, Beacon Hill, Greenwood, Fremont.

I feel like it still hasn't bounced.

My, you know, I think, for me personally, I feel like it's probably something that's spawned from the pandemic.

And now I also feel like there are so many, talented, emotionally invested chefs that are, are AAPI that are starting to invest in other neighborhoods outside of there that folks might just be, they're, they're frequenting places within their neighborhood that are accessible.

And I think getting to downtown and getting to to the ID is a lot, a lot harder for them.

I want to read just something.

It's a story that I, I wrote, this is very self-serving.

Hopefully it doesn't.

And in this story I interviewed restaurant owners and the police.

And the police in regards to Chinatown says it's an open air drug use area filled with illegal vendors hawking stolen goods such as liquor and electronic gear and clothes.

One restaurant owner says delivery drivers refuse to leave their car to walk into his restaurant to pick up the food because it's too dangerous in Chinatown.

Another restaurant owner said he has the his staff flush the back stairs with boiling water in the morning because the section often reeks of urine in the morning.

I wrote the story in November 2021 and sadly it will still hold true today.

Everything I wrote in '21 is still exactly the way things are.

But, Melissa, I want to ask you because you own.

You opened a restaurant in Chinatown.

So tell me about that restaurant and tell about your experience working in Chinatown, offering a business in Chinatown.

There's so many things to say.

What's that?

Tell us about the restaurant.

Yeah, we opened the Kilig, last year in October of 2023.

It is a Filipino like, contemporary, more fast casual versus Musang.

It's on 8th and Lane and across from Crawfish King, and it's, part of the IDIC and ACHS so it's really like in the community, there was a little like kids, like kids would play in the playground above us.

Sadly, they're no longer there.

Two blocks from Uwajimaya?

Two blocks from the Wing Luke Museum.

You know, I think you writing that article in 2021 to now, I think, yes, it is obviously still the same, but I think it's even worsened tenfold.

You know, we had issues with, you know, people breaking in during the pandemic.

It's still happening.

I went to a concert, like a month ago and walked by E Jae Park More and like, their window was completely torn down and like, no one was saying anything.

And so we called and like, I contacted the owner.

So definitely like a risk and a challenge, right?

So if we're talking about the ID, there's an investment of sorts, I guess, like for me, why did we open up in the IDs?

Like, I have so many memories of being there with my dad, going to the pet shop, eating at Sea Garden, going to the old Uwajimaya, and I think there's so much that's a part of me that's like, I want to hold onto those memories.

And there's not just me, you know?

There's Yen from Gan Bet, the folks at Fort Saint George Itsumono, had famous like, there is a newer generation that's still trying to mam's bookstore.

If you guys don't know any of these businesses, please follow them.

They are kind of like the heart of that part of rebuilt, like, revitalization.

I think one thing that bothers me is like, how come it falls on Asian Americans or folks in the CID to have to combat these issues and problems?

And that's, I think, the biggest thing like the I find in the ID that like is so hard.

There's like, I know that like even in Little Saigon, like there's just so much and you're like, where are the people to help us?

But it always comes to community.

Who ends up helping each other.

But I think that we do need more eyes on it.

And, Melissa, I think you're being too generous because I can tell you just from talking to some, the business owners down there, what they're saying is how come when Ballard complains, the homeless issue goes away and everything goes back to normal and there's no more broken windows?

Or as much, at least not as much used to?

How come in Fremont, when people complain about some of the problems, it goes away.

But yet when business owners and in Chinatown at the national district complain it doesn't goes away.

It just goes away for one day, does a sweep what have you.

They have the fire department hose down the area and then it just goes back to normal and it's like like you said, it's actually worse than Covid.

Are you hopeful that things will get better and that's not to use Melissa, I just leave out everyone.

Are you what you think?

You think Chinatown will get better eventually?

What needs to be done?

I feel personally with what Melissa said.

I mean, there's a new change of guard with with, Saka who's who's got Mam's bookstore.

What?

Melissa's doing with Kilig.

Yeah.

And all that, I feel like you're getting people our generation that experience a lot of, a lot of the inequities and all the different areas we grew up around the states, the way we look as AAPI folk.

And I feel like this change of guard is the hopeful part of it.

I, I, I didn't grow up in Seattle when I was a kid, but most of my cousins all did.

And they've had the same fond stories as Melissa, and it's like going to the ID and not seeing it be represented the way it's always been has been a struggle for them.

And I, I'm hopeful that now the folks that are investing in the businesses in the ID are going to be that, that, that change.

But, you know, things with the city council and the police department, I feel like it ends up being really performative.

I mean, I live in Ballard.

My shops are in Phinney and Greenwood, and a complaint out there would get a problem fixed easily, but it never gets fixed in the ID.

I hate to leave on such a down note, and I would say this by Chinatown.

If anyone doubts the power of restaurants, I would say earlier this summer there was a new dim sum hall that opened in Chinatown.

It's called Diamond Bay, and overnight from the day it opened, there were lines, literally no exaggeration, two blocks long.

I try to go on a weekday.

I could not find parking in Chinatown for the first time in a couple of years.

I could not find parking in Chinatown for the first time.

I saw so much energy, so much foot traffic like I'd never seen before on a weekday.

On a weekday.

And it reminds me that one: there is still hope in Chinatown, and two, that is the power of restaurants.

I'm sorry, but this was another pet shop or, I don't know, clothing store?

There would not be lines two blocks long.

It can only be a restaurant.

And I think that is the power of restaurants, because restaurants matters.

You might not like a restaurant, you might like, hey, the food cost too much, but that is the power of restaurant.

That single restaurant.

For a month before the buzz died down, changed Chinatown.

It gave me hope that it was going to get better.

But unfortunately, like everything everyone loves a shiny and new and it went back to normal and and here we are again still talking about that.

It's just just keep supporting the businesses.

But there's like there's like if you want to like, talk about how we can change or how you guys showing up here is just like, yes, these businesses are the ones that exist, and these are the ones that you have to keep on showing up for.

Yes, parking is hard.

Parking is hardd owntown parking is hard in Phinney Ridge.

Parking is hard in Fremont.

Like, what's to stop you coming into Chinatown?

The CID.

And like, you can park in Uwajimaya.

I and like, spend $20 and then like, walk around the neighborhood.

You want like a little low key, like, you know, you take the train, like, there's so many opportunities.

Like, yes, it is hard, but the part of being Asian American, Filipino American who we are is the resiliency.

So what we do, and I think that's why we're also up here is because like, is to like remind like, hey, we are here in existence.

And it isn't just about the shiny places.

It's like, how do we make sure that there's longevity and like sustainability to our businesses that like, we are uplifting all of you that are in the room.

And I don't think anyone would disagree with me on this.

This is a national study that came out that doing the first year the pandemic, Asian American restaurants lost an estimated $7.4 billion in revenue just in the first year of the pandemic, much higher than other mainstream restaurants and so forth.

And to even look at this at a smaller scale.

Does anyone?

Has anyone heard of Zen Cafe?

I don't think you have one.

Good.

That's great too great.

If you don't know, Zen Cafe is owned by a couple who love Seattle and thought, hey, Seattle is a liberal rich city that supports its Asian community.

So they say, wow, there's a lot of dim sum place here?

There's a lot of, soup dumplings places here.

We're going to open a restaurant.

Called Zen Cafe and it's going to be call.

It's going to specialize in Wuhan cuisine.

You can see where this is going.

So they serve sesame paste noodle from Wuhan and other dishes from Wuhan because they figured no one does this cuisine.

And then the pandemic hit and well, the outbreak was in Wuhan, the center of the Covid outbreak.

And you can imagine the racism, the death threats that they receive.

But what pains them more and I bring this up because I don't want to make this against Asian and other race against it white and other race against Asian people.

What hurt them the most was a Chinese couple came in and says, are you guys from Wuhan?

She says, yeah.

And she said, well, I don't want repeat what they said, but they left and that for the couple stung them more than anything that any white person said in any death threats because it showed them that, hey, it's this, this virus changes in so many rates and it brought out the worst in us.

They closed down.

Which is why you most of you have not heard of Zen Cafe.

They they're fine.

They keep them low key because they've been getting death threats.

But I bring this up because I think you guys have a much.

But I think it has affected us so much more than any other race.

So I want to ask you guys, what did you learn from Covid?

What was your experience as a restaurant owner doing Covid and what you get from that?

Learn from that.

Excuse me.

Anyone?

Yeah, I mean, I think so many I mean, Covid has changed all of us, right?

I mean, I think restaurants, you know, we all get into restaurants because we all loved cooking.

We all been creative, we all having fun.

And then all of a sudden you kind of have to resort to the very essence of it, which is basically just feeding yourself, your loved ones, your community and everyone else in the city.

And I think that really kind of brought up really the most important part of why we are doing this, right.

Because we are the center of the community.

We are the places where people can come in.

And then you know that that was there.

Like, we not doing that, getting walking out down the street and getting the take out.

Was there one day, one thing they could do basically as activity because no one has any more to go or anything to do.

So for us, it was kind of a time that where, I don't think, I mean, we are all really grateful.

The fact that we survived, obviously, and for a lot of people I know, if they were able, they all opened, they all stayed open doing, whatever it is takeout doing the, community service, you know, helping people and just kind of being able to be the essential part of the I think the community was such a big part that I think they rekindled all of us, basically realizing how important it is that we are just now cooking for ourselves, for not just cooking for our egos, our food and whatnot, but just, you know, the fact that you are here to really take care of people.

And I know that a lot of restaurants kind of are moving with that idea as a backbone moving forward.

And I think that became a big part of like reason of how we move forward every day or whatever the challenge is, hey, we got through Covid, right?

Whatever that happens, we can still do it.

And it's because we are here to take care of everyone else How was it for you, Karuna?

I felt like it forced my hand where I at the time, I owned Oliver's Twist.

And you know what I inherited from the previous owners were just small bites.

And for me, it was just trying to figure out how, how do we make this sustainable, how do we survive this?

And it brought me to a point of digging deep to, finding myself again and connecting myself with my culture and becoming closer again with my mom.

And, and I ended up doing a pop up, and that just it jumped off, and it was really it was really, awakening for me, spirit wise, for who I was, because I was this kid that was lost.

I got in trouble, got arrested so many times, and I, I feel like I embody the the story of the first and second gen Cambodian kid getting caught up in gangs and stuff.

When you're younger and with this, it provided me an opportunity to find myself and to connect closer with my culture.

And that felt like it was something nourishing that I needed.

After almost, you know, 35 plus years.

And, and what Covid also presented to me was, it showed this resilience amongst, the AAPI community and the folks that surround our community that are are such huge supporters of, AAPI community, culture and businesses because you start seeing people that show up for each other, people that show up for one another to protect each other from that, from Covid.

And like there's a there's a line drawn.

You see people that care about each other versus people that don't.

And I think that that was kind of the silver lining that I was able to get from it.

And, you know, I'm really grateful because it ended up being, being able to put us in a position to, to open up.

Sophon.

And now I get to honor my mom while she's still here, I get to honor the culture, and I get to tell a story that not a lot of folks are familiar with during Covid.

Unlike restaurants, you had a bar, so it was tougher to do takeout.

I would think because it wasn't that big of a kitchen.

I don't know if you've been to Oliver's Twist you shared, by the way.

It's a great bar.

But yeah, it wasn't much of a kitchen.

So how did you get by?

You know, in the beginning phases, my brother and I, because we were closed at the time for takeout.

We had induction burners on every part of the bar top as well.

We were cooking anywhere and everywhere we could cook in the space, and folks were happy to support us.

And, and then when dine-in, reopened, that was a struggle in itself.

But we found our way to make it happen.

And then the health department comes in and they're like, you're cooking too much food in this tiny kitchen.

You need to scale it back.

And there's always one thing or another with the health department.

So it's like, how are we supposed to survive and like be sustainable as a business if we can't do what we're trying to do with, like telling the story and such?

And I think that's what makes it really hard for folks that are trying to start in this, this industry.

I think that, like, I think some of the regulations and guidances with the health department could be lessened a little bit more because there are so many folks that are afraid to jump into this dream because of all the requirements and all that.

And, that kitchen was a nightmare.

I mean, my brother and I were pretty much sewed to each other's backs, like, and anyone that I hired or interviewed like they were entrusted with the food, but they didn't want to cook in the kitchen because it was tiny.

Yeah.

And Melissa, you did something that was really no one different from a lot of people because a lot of people pivot to do takeout and try to save their business.

You you pivot, but more towards like a soup kitchen model, almost in the sense that your focus was helping the needy and the poor and so forth.

Tell me about this.

During Covid, what did you do?

We, so, Musang.

This is a Musang.

In Beacon Hill.

So Musang opened in January of 2020.

So we had three months of, like, amazing line out the door.

Very not Covid friendly.

And, you know, I had started hearing things, in like, the Philippines and in Europe and like, realizing that this thing was coming, like, a lot bigger than probably what we all thought it was going to be.

And so for us, community has always been important.

It's always been we've always put first, my team is always put first.

We always say that Musang is a community driven restaurant space, not a chef driven space.

Because they're first.

And so we actually shut down a couple of days before the mandate happened that all the restaurants had to close, and we turned our kitchen into a community kitchen.

So for three months, seven days a week, we, offered meals to first responders, to families that were affected.

The lunch programs that were affected.

We were giving out grocery bags, taking donations from other restaurants, and just trying to make, like, culturally relevant food for our community in a time of need.

And I think for me, you know, a lot of people are like, how did you make that decision?

And then there wasn't really, it wasn't hard.

I think at that point, like, I'm not going to make money.

I have a space.

I have a business like I am a worker.

I'm a workaholic.

Some people say, but like, I knew that in that space I could still feed people and it looked differently, but I still needed to feed people.

So yeah, I mean, we applied for grants.

I don't know how to do that.

Somehow it works.

You know, I think our community donated helped keep us to be able to keep feeding people.

And, as we slowly opened, I think that is what also helped, because people wanted to support us.

Yeah, the corona.

I recall at Oliver's, you had a pretty much a mandate in terms of masks, right?

Even when it was eased, you still had that mandate.

Tell me why and tell me the reaction from the public.

So I had that mandate because first and foremost, my partner, she works in health care and, hearing the stories, that of, you know, the numbers and all the stats, it, it meant something to me, and I, I have family that's immunocompromised.

And, and at the time, I had a couple employees as well that were immunocompromised.

So it's like, for me, same thing with, with Melissa and, with Rachel, it's like your staff is everything to you.

Your community is everything to you.

Like at that point, you knew you were going to lose potential patrons that don't believe in this mandate.

But before you go further, can I tell you of all the places as a reporter, I hear a lot from the public in the anti-vaxxer.

You are public enemy number one.

Yeah, among the anti-vaxxer.

I've definitely heard that before.

And, you know, for me personally, I was like, what post Covid during Covid, everyone's shop, everyone's small businesses is under fire.

You don't know if you're going to survive.

So I would rather go out of business doing the right thing than go out of business taking advantage of anything else.

I mean, my mom taught me better.

My parents have survived so much for like, this is, take care of your community.

So even with all the pressure, especially from the anti-vaxxer community, that was never an issue.

Like, hey, maybe we should relax this though.

No, without a doubt.

Like I was not going to budge.

I've had to physically walk people out that try to walk in and be aggressive with my staff, and I'm like, I give my staff carte blanche.

You know, if you feel comfortable with, dealing with the situation, you have, you have my, my green light.

If you don't feel comfortable with it, let me know.

I mean, and oftentimes sometimes, like, I have a lot of regulars and my brothers are always there.

So it's like it's the wrong place for you to try to pick a fight with a mandate.

So we're in a tough situation now, you know, the worst of Covid, hopefully, knock on wood, is over.

But so it's tough industry here in Seattle.

So I was wondering are you guys optimistic right now in 2025, For future of Seattle dining scene.

And then before you even answer it I'll buy you some time.

I'll give you like 20s here at the start because that's a big, big, heavy topic in talking to a lot of mainstream chef.

Not everyone is optimistic that things will be better than Seattle.

They're saying it's not a coincidence that you see a lot of Smashburgers.

It's it's not a coincidence that you see a lot of pizza and pasta, because pizza and pasta is like flour and water.

It's like, you know, higher profit margin.

So that's why you see pizza, pasta, Smashburgers.

And what they're saying is we're not taking risks here in Seattle.

There's too much at stake.

Right.

Food inflation, labor shortage.

So you don't take risks anymore is what some of the mainstream chefs say.

So that said do you agree with that especially let's take this Asian restaurants.

Is that concern for Asian restaurants too?

What do you think is the scene varied?

Is a food diverse varied or what do you think?

Well, if I can choose a great one, go ahead.

Rachel.

No, I mean, because I feel like I've been around in the city for a really long time.

So I have two restaurants.

They're both so one of them is celebrating or just celebrating 17 years of opening.

So I it, I do feel like a, I do I it's been it's been a long time coming because, you know, we've obviously struggled with a lot of having Asian food where in the beginning I felt like there was a, you know, so we are sort of probably fusion kind of restaurant.

We're not a traditional Korean restaurant, first of all.

But I think I came with a lot of different thinking because, when we when we opened the restaurant 17 years ago, opening our Asian restaurant means basically, even if you're serving a dumpling, you know, that means you have actually about six ounces of meat in there.

But you're only you can only charge it barely $10, right?

For a plate of dumplings and things like that, where same amount of meat that would go into a, the pasta sauce or ragu or to a different cuisines.

You will be a high teens.

So we're talking about basically creating a dish that has a, you know, Asian food, which was notoriously seemed very cheap and affordable and easy.

And I think they're trying to basically create something that has much more value.

We kind of basically wanted to offer something a little bit more than Asian, but also was sort of my personal choice of what kind of kind of food that we wanted to do.

But I heard, I mean, you know, this is, you know, we were talking about Seattle, we're talking about food scene, but also we're also living in 2024 with everything else going on.

Right.

And I heard this saying, say we all have to be apocalyptic optimist.

And I truly believe that meaning that, you know, like you have to really have to understand and know the worst is coming, but you have to be optimistic because there's absolutely no other way to do this.

But if you actually expect the worst, that's actually when you can really have the courage to do it.

Because if you think it's going to be just okay, we'll be like, I think we'll be fine, whatever.

Then you have no idea what's coming at you because it's actually there's a storm coming.

Winter is here for sure.

And and I would say, I hate to say this to you guys, but I would say Asian restaurants, we have it tougher than other restaurants because, Aad you brought this up, Rachel, I thought you were ballsy when you opened 17 years ago.

Because the problem is, when you do Asian fusion or you're in a, really nice neighborhood, you have to charge more because of rent.

And, you know, it's high end service.

People don't like it that way.

They look at Asian, they think these dumplings, I could get them for like five bucks.

You charging ten bucks?

And good example is people say, bahn mi.

But a good example is noodles.

And I hope everyone listens to this because when you, you look at hand-pulled noodles, noodles made by hand, it's usually 12 to $14.

And every Chinese restaurant there's try to raise the price to 20, get bad Yelp reviews.

That does not happen at Italian restaurants.

When it's handmade pasta, I can't find one Italian restaurant that has handmade pasta that's under 20 bucks and yet when Asians do hand-pulled noodles and it's more than 14.99 all hell breaks loose on Yelp, you just don't want to go there.

So I think, I think that's one of the biggest challenge that you guys have.

And related to that, I want to talk about career wise because I don't know.

I mean, I'm sure this is true.

This is a mostly Asian crowd, I think.

I think you get this in the sense that our parents expect us to be, I don't know, math and science engineers, doctors, tech people, and even I know, let's say, seven parents who owns teriyaki or pho shops and none of them want their kids to run a restaurant.

No, not one of them.

So I'm going to ask you guys because all you guys went to college, really good college, and you didn't end up doing what you expected.

So, Rachel, we're going to start with you because you are the ideal perfect Asian minority.

She went to the Ivy leagues.

So I'm going to channel my I'm going to channel my tiger mom.

Because if I went to Ivy League and was a perfect student, like you, my mom right now would be saying, Rachel, what went wrong?

Why did you go to the dark side?

Right.

They'll be, they would be like, I don't know.

Friends would gather around to try to talk you out of that.

So there would be like, so tell people where you went, what degree you got.

And as my Asian mom would say, what went wrong?

Rachel, why do you go to a dark side?

Well, no, because I'm not the first gen who came to the States when I was 15.

My parents actually sent me here to go to college, go to good college, and I actually did.

I was very obedient.

I studied very hard.

I went to a good college.

Tell them what college.

I went to, Brown University and and then but here's the thing.

So that but that's that's all I was taught.

My mom asked me to go to a good college, but she did not tell me what to do afterwards with my life.

No, I mean, what I mean is basically, you know, in, in, in Korea especially, people are sort of pressure to go to a good college.

Oftentimes kids get lost not knowing what they're studying for.

Right?

So I majored in urban studies and fine arts.

But after I graduated, I was I completely lost, I had no idea what to do.

And then, you know, I accidentally went to cooking school thinking that this is something that I would just want to buy time figuring out what to do.

However, I went to cooking school as if I was studying in Ivy League college, right?

So I was one of the better students in cooking school.

Studying actually, you know, learning all those things.

But the restaurant industry was just really, really amazing because it was the place where I really learned this third language.

There was like universal language there, where food really spoke to everyone.

And I think that was really interesting thing and the more than anything.

And so in the beginning, when I first went to cooking school and went to working at restaurants, I thought foolishly, okay, I want to want to work at highest level of like French restaurant, because I thought that was the best way of being the top of the cooking career.

That, you know what my parents would be proud of.

But then, just like what you're saying later, you realize there's so many other people doing it and there's so much better than you, and they speak French like I'm not going to compete there.

So when you realize actually food is what I thought I was going to be, make us all equal grand.

I realized that I had something that's special and different, which was, you know, it was Korean food, which this was very, very early days of David Chang in New York City.

So people are just starting to get really excited about it.

And then I realized when I was talking about Korean food, people like, oh, like, you must be really good at Korean food because you're Korean.

So I actually ended up basically cooking food, thinking that everyone would buy all my food because they because they always give.

They have given me the permission that I'll make the best Korean food.

So it's it's just really interesting the pathway that I took and but all this time it really kind of helps us to understand.

And but by the way, I do have a younger sister who did go to, really great college too, but then became a lawyer.

But my mom actually still talks about how she's more proud of me now, so.

Oh.

Melissa, you're up next?

You went to U-dub, tell people what you graduated in.

And as my tiger mom would say, what went wrong?

Why did you end up in the kitchen?

I did, I I'm a husky wooo, very much like Rachel.

I think there's so much weight put into going to college and getting a degree, but not really direction or guidance, except like, be a doctor, be a lawyer.

So I got a degree in sociology.

I thought I was going to be a therapist and or a social worker.

I feel like I am at times a social worker and a therapist for my team.

So at least I'm applying some of what I learned.

My dad constantly reminds me probably the tiger mom in you Tan, that he sacrificed so much and put me through college for four years at the U-dub.

And now I am a chef or a cook in his eyes.

But, you know, I think they, as you know, Filipino American Filipinos moving to America where so much of their own worth and identity was, hidden because of the need to survive.

And so I think through Musang and through other Filipino American chefs that are putting the forefront of the importance of our cuisine and culture, they're able to be proud and understand the worth and the work of who they are and what it means to be Filipino.

And I think for me, that weighs more than going to college because they're understanding, you know, they, their food matters and who they are matters.

Yeah.

Last but not least.

Karuna.

You went to UCLA, Again Asian mom and me.

What went wrong?

Why do we end up in the kitchen, sir?

So it went wrong.

Twice, actually.

So my parents, you know, I, I struggled with, trying to separate myself from my friends that were always out in the streets when we were growing up in Long Beach in California in the 90s.

And so, like, trying to find a place where there was so much racial division and all that was really hard.

And, somehow I found my way, into college because of my love for music.

My dad was a musician back in Cambodia, and he continued finding his way throughout the US, just playing music all around.

And our mom was a traditional Khmer dancer and a songstress, so music was just kind of like embedded in me.

And as I got older, I was involved in choir music in all aspects, and when it came to learning instruments, my dad was like, would never give me the time of day.

He would never teach me an instrument, but he would teach all of my cousins instruments.

But he was like, I did not want you to follow my pathway.

So what happens when your parents tell you not to do something?

You do it.

So I got my high school teacher to, I sparked his interest and he took me under his wing and tutored me until I was able to get into UCLA.

And my aspiration was, to study jazz and, redo traditional Khmer music and jazz format and tried that after college, and I wanted to, like, tell the history behind that.

And, you know, cut my teeth in New York for a little bit and moved back to Southern California and got homesick and moved back up to Seattle, where I was born.

And found myself back in this industry.

And, while I was in this industry I was teaching children's piano.

And the more I got involved, I was I realized that I really love this industry.

It's so community driven.

And then the pandemic forced my hand started cooking more, spending more time with my mom.

And so that just kind of got to where we are now.

And, you know, it's, first and foremost, I want to give credit to Melissa because ever since Melissa started Musang, you know, you don't know this, but you are one of my biggest inspiration because what you did with my song and, and your culture, it made me, it made me.

It gave me the courage to, to to find that pathway with my culture as well.

And so when you were talking about the dangers of what we're expecting come 2025, you know, like, like Rachel had said, the storm is coming, but for me, I would rather face that storm head on with what I'm doing than never ever do what I'm doing.

Because it's more dangerous that my my culture story is not told.

Yeah.

We're running out of time.

But last question, and I know no one wants to know this.

So you spent a lot of time in the kitchen.

But when you're not in the kitchen, you're eating out.

You're off the clock.

What do you eat?

You can't mention each other's restaurant.

Yes, it's all great.

It's all great.

But we'll start with you.

Go ahead.

Where?

Where do you eat?

Cafe Suliman?

In Melrose Market.

Let's see.

It's no longer here, but Hing Loon that was one of my favorite places in the ID.

Pancita Janet's doing an amazing job as well.

Yeah.

I mean, there's there's there's so many places, but those are kind of off the top of my head right now.

Rachel, what do you go for Korean food.

That's not yours?

Well, actually, there's, really amazing Korean food.

Paju.

That's down in South Westlake the modern Korean really fun really shows the value of, like, when you talk about the elevated sort of version of it.

I mean, it just like it's a it's the place where you can really treat yourself.

Yeah.

Melissa, where do you go?

I go to O-Mart in Pike Place Market.

It's owned by Tita Leila.

She's fed us Filipino food since forever.

And then speaking of the ID, Maneki is the oldest Japanese restaurant.

They are known for their small plates.

Support them.

The bar just got redone.

Go visit Jean.

God, now I'm hungry.

But the good news is, I think we have some more food left over.

Or some food left over so we can all chow down.

And if you watch out there on a tape delay or streaming.

I'm sorry, but you know what?

You just got to come back and hit their restaurants.

But thank you.

Thanks everyone for joining us.

Thanks, Rachel.

Thanks.

Yeah.

Hey, everybody.

How y'all doing tonight?

Good.

Hey, I guess I'll start just by saying, Gooey duck forever.

That's how that's how I where I'm at tonight.

I'm super nervous, and it's mostly because this room is so full and I'm really hot.

It feels like a sauna in here.

I feel like I'm in a hot pot, like rolling.

Like just like with that fish ball over and over that no one ever fishes out.

And then you, like, someone has to eat at the very end.

That I am.

I am that fish and that fish ball right now.

Okay.

I'm just going to read a little bit, and I'm going to read a poem that I wrote.

I want to say, I want to say like three years ago, but it, I don't know, it has more and more resonance to me now, especially after the election.

So I'm going to read it.

And it is about my dream daughter, a daughter that doesn't exist.

But she's about to chop some onions, so, Dream daughter with onions.

My dream daughter is chopping onions.

She has been chopping for hours, slipping off the skin like tea colored lingerie, slicing them thinly like the rings of some beloved planet.

As she chops, she nudges them to the side, a growing mound of interlocking circles measuring the wide circumference of all her selves.

With each onion beheaded, her hair grows sweaty with a sharp armpit smell.

With he stinging sweetness in the tempered center, each long strand of hers unraveling behind two large ears just like mine.

Gramophone, worthy, subterranean cave worthy.

I look at her wayward strands and they dangle like lampshade pulls, and I pull at my own willow hair.

For who doesn't desire beauty, you can call yours.

Did you know, I tell her, that back in the day when I was little onions used to make people cry.

That sometimes.

But then she stops me right there.

Her hand held high with her knife shining like a winning moon, as she says gently, dirt loosening each bulb.

Mom, let's keep bad men out of this poem.

And she just keeps chopping.

Thanks for, reading that little speculative poem with me.

I grew up in the restaurant, so I am a restaurant baby.

I grew up in a takeout restaurant, on the Jersey shore in a strip mall.

And, I have so many fond memories of growing up in that restaurant.

I don't know anybody.

A restaurant baby grew up in their family's restaurant.

I see a few hands here.

Aka free child labor.

The worst job I ever did was to clean the poop vein out of the shrimp.

And I would just, like, sit there with the paper towel and just wipe the goop.

Anyway, because of that, I think I really did become a writer as a result.

I think when you are surrounded by the sounds, the smells, the the, the conversation with the customers, you are in a land of synesthesia.

You are in a land of poetry.

I cannot, I can't be a writer without eating and nourishing myself and nourishing the people I love.

So I'm going to read just a tiny passage from my memoir, Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City, which kind of starts off in the restaurant world.

And, one of the chapters is called a cheat sheet for restaurant babies, because even though my family's, restaurant, kind of didn't survive, my father was a gambler, and he basically gambled it away, which is part of the Atlantic City part, but, yeah, I wrote this, like, little cheat sheet for the next kid that was going to be living in this restaurant.

And there's always another, like, Chinese family in this restaurant.

And I'm 40 now, so I don't know how many iterations of, like, the kids that have been there.

It's always a Chinese restaurant.

Okay.

This is called How to Lob an egg into a Parking lot.

Wait until it's dark.

Settled in dark, not sunset dark, say 9 p.m. the sound breaking is better when you can't see it happening when your father isn't looking.

Go to the fridge and steal two eggs from the carton and wrap them up in a small towel.

Folding the towel like you would an origami cup.

Sneak out through the back of the restaurant, mind the potholes and circle around front to the parking lot.

Unfold the towel and give your little brother one egg.

When he says the egg is too cold and it smells rotten, like, unbrush teeth, tell him to shut up.

Ground your heels into the gravel.

As you imagine baseball pitchers do to gain traction.

Give all your anger to the egg.

Breathe your hot breath on it.

Hold it up to the sky like an offering, a sacrifice.

This careful thing that could have grown into something else.

Tell your brother there's nothing to be afraid of.

Tell him to stop shaking.

He is no incubator.

With your arm bent back at 45 degrees, hurl the egg high into the air, into an arch any city would welcome as a bridge.

Hurl the egg and do not think about anything.

Not about how your father sloshes an aquarium of whiskey, not about the growing piles of bills you will have to translate later.

You have to give the egg all of it.

You can open your eyes or close them.

It won't matter since you won't see it land, but you will hear it.

You will hear your brothers squeal like a pig at mealtime, and you will hear the splat.

The corpuscular glob of the yolk spreading across the hood of a car.

Poor car, you'll think.

Poor stupid car.

I always want to say true story after I read from the memoir, but it's obvious that it's like true story.

Yeah, I used to lob eggs in the parking lot, when I was bored as a child because what else do you do?

Besides chores at the restaurant?

Besides cause trouble.

So I stole, like, a lip smacker, from one of the stores down the way.

Got in big trouble for that, too.

My favorite is when I used to go to Burlington Coat Factory, and I would go right in the middle where the coats were right in the middle, and I would just sit there and read books, and then weird strangers would, like, be shopping for coats, and they'd find a small child in there.

And I'm like, what are you looking at?

Anyway, the restaurant I grew up in was also across the street from the public library.

So my mom would drop me off there for like, six hours because this is back in the 80s, and you could, I guess, do that.

And so I think I became a writer because of that, too.

So it's like the combination.

I'm going to end with a poem that has, a lot of resonance for me.

I think when I think about food, it is not just something that is delicious, which it obviously is, and it's also a sign of love, which we all know what that cut fruit means.

Of course, when someone does that beautiful act of care for you, I also come from a history of hunger and starvation in my family.

And I grew up in a restaurant, so growing up in gluttony, whereas my grandfather's generation, did not survive the Great Leap Forward.

And so my mom grew up eating very little.

She would tell me stories how she would get an egg on her birthday.

You know, that was her protein.

And I grew up in complete gluttony, and, you know, stuffed like a little bao bao.

You know, my cheeks are so red and, like, puffy and like a little pork bun.

But I come from this history of hunger, and I don't sometimes know what to do about that.

Right.

It's like one of those things where I wish I could go back in time, go back to my grandfather's generation and, like, feed them.

And so, this book of poems, my second book is kind of about that and what it means to, to feed our ghosts, to feed our ancestors.

And this last poem I'm going to be reading, I wrote these letters to my ancestors who did not survive the Great Leap Forward were an estimated 36 million people starved.

It's often the history that people don't talk about.

I wrote all these letters to my ancestors.

The thing is, when you write poems to ancestors, you want them to answer you.

But they're ghosts.

How can they?

But they did.

So this poem is, in the voice of my ancestors, and, they want a huge party.

They want a potluck.

And they're hungry.

So thank you all for listening.

I'm going to end with this.

And then we have more.

So, thanks for being here.

This poem is called After preparing the altar, the ghosts feast feverishly, and it begins with a quote, by poet and activist Audre Lorde, which is how hard it is to sleep in the middle of a life.

We wake in the middle of a life hungry.

We smear durian along our mouths, sing soft death a lullaby carcass breath, eras of licked fingers and the finest perfume.

What is love if not rot?

We wear the fruit's hull as a spiked crown.

Grinning in green armor.

Death to the grub.

Fat in his milky shuffle.

Death to the lawlessness of dirt, death to mud and all its false chocolate.

To the bloated sun We want to slice open.

And we want a yoke all over the village.

We want a sun drenched slug feast an omelet.

Losing its folds like hot jello.

We want the marble fat of steak and all its swirling pink galaxies.

We want the drool, the gnash, the pluck of each corn kernel raw and summer swell.

Tears welling up oil order up.

Pickled cucumbers piled like logs for a fire like fat limbs we pepper and succulent in order up shrimp chips curling in a porcelain bowl like subway seats.

Grapes peeled from bitter bark, almost translucent like eyes would rather see.

Little girl, what do you leave leaven in your sights?

Death to the open eyes of the dying.

Here there's so many open eyes we can't close each one.

No, we did not say the steamed fish.

No eyelids fluttering like.

No butterfly wings.

No purple yam lips.

We set eyes.

Eyes still and resolute as a heartbreaker.

Does this break your heart?

Look, we don't want to be rude, but we want seconds.

Please.

We want cloves of oranges swallowed whole like a basketball or Mars or whatever planet is the most delicious.

Slather saturn ferment mercury.

Lap up its film of dust.

Seconds, thirds fourths.

A bouquet of chicken feet a garden of melons monstrous in their bulge.

Prune back nothing.

We purr in this garden.

We comb through berries and come out so blue.

Little girl lasso tofu, the rope slicing its belly clean.

Deep fried a cloud so it tastes like bitter gourd.

Or the father leaving the exhaust of his car charred.

Serenade a snake and slither its tongue into yours and bite love.

What is love if not knotted in garlic, child.

We move through graves like eels.

Delicious with our heads first, our mouths agape, our teeth little needles, a stitch, a factory of everything made in China.

You ask us, are you hungry?

Hunger eats through the air like ozone.

You ask, what does it mean to be rootless?

Roots are good to use as toothpicks.

You.

How can you wake up in the middle of a life?

We shut and open our eyes like the sun shining on tossed pennies.

And a forgotten well.

Balled copper blood.

Yu choy bolts into roses down here.

While you were sleeping.

We woke to the old leaves of your backyard shed.

And then we ate that.

And then we ate one of your last flip flops too.

In a future life, we saw rats overtake a supermarket with so much milk we turned opaque.

We wake to something boiling.

We wake to wash dirt from lettuce to blossom into your face.

If it's along the lashes, little girl, don't forget to take care of the chickens.

Squawking in our mess and stench.

That our mouths buckle at the sight of you devouring.

Slice after slice of pizza and the greasy box to the test frontier swung for you.

It's time to wake up.

Wake the tapeworm who loves his home.

Wake the ants and let them do-si-do a spoonful of peanut butter.

Tell us, little girl, are you hungry?

Awake?

Astonished enough.

Thank you.

Our first panelist is an author, food writer, recipe developer.

She's working on the third cookbook.

She's also.

It's one of the most fun Instagram posts I've seen.

Subtle Asian baking, and she'll talk about it more.

Kat Lieu, please join me.

Again, why does people just keep going like this?

Okay, no.

No fine.

You good.

Next panelist is a creator behind Feed the Pudge, which has over 300,000 followers on multiple social media channels.

He talks a lot about the Vietnamese heritage and food, and we'll get dive more into that.

Ken Tran please one up.

Thank you.

Sir.

Sit right next to you.

All right.

There you go.

See?

I don't bite.

Next panelist is award winning food journalist.

She used to be on my former colleague.

She used to be a food editor.

The Seattle P-I.

Author of three cookbooks in the past year, the James Beard Foundation Book Awards Committee.

Hsiao-Ching Chou, please come on up.

Thank you for joining us.

And last but not least, talk about your overachieving Asian.

She's a college student who has done several short films, award winning short films, and she is also a coauthor of the cookbook Feast of Good Fortune.

Right, Feast of Good Fortune, where her mom Meilee Chou Riddle.

Thank you.

Great.

So when people ask me what I do for a living, and why did I choose to be a food writer and restaurant critic?

I say, because it's not really about food.

Because you can tell any story through food, because it's environment.

It's climate change, it's immigration, it's agriculture and farming.

All that falls under an umbrella of food.

And I would say that these guys take it even further, because you can tell the story of immigrants and Asian culture and the language through food, and that's what they have all done expertly.

And I'm very jealous.

And we're going to talk about what they do.

We'll start with you, Kat, because I love your Instagram.

So tell people what this Instagram is when it got started and, yeah, yeah.

How did you start this?

Yeah.

It started off as a hobby.

Oh.

Did you say Kat?

Not Ken.

Oh my God, I mean, I introduced Ken to this.

It's okay, it's fine.

I'm used to it.

Men talking over me.

I'm kidding Ken.

I'm so sorry.

I'm kidding Ken.

Oh, one thing.

My husband.

Can you move over there so you could see me?

Take that seat over there.

Thank you.

Amazing.

Thank you.

So, my name is Kat Lieu.

I am a former doctor of physical therapy.

I am the author of Modern Asian Kitchen, Modern Asian Baking at Home.

Some of you won the book.

There's books outside the book larder.

I have subtle Asian baking.

And I'm at Kat Lieu on Instagram, and I'm not really that much of a content creator.

I'm actually writing for Simply Recipes tasting table reading my third book.

Like Tan said, and how it started was in 2020, Covid happened and I was really missing my mom's Cantonese food.

And she's in New York City.

We're all in Seattle, and people told us you can't buy things other than your essentials.

So I said, I need to learn how to make some milk, bread and mochi and donuts and whatever.

Right.

So then that's when I started subtle Asian baking, a group all about baking the Asian way.

And then from that point on, I channeled the energies of my father, who was very giving, and we started raising money with this group.

And I think some subtle Asian baking members are here.

I think I think some of them are here.

If you're here, raise your hand.

They'll be great.

Yeah.

There she is.

Yeah, my husband too.

And so he's everywhere I am.

It's amazing.

Behind a great woman is a great man.

And so now, every day I'm living a dream, doing content creation, writing for food.

I mean, everyone knows Kenji Lopez, but hopefully soon everyone will know Kat Lieu in Seattle.

Yeah.

I'll be on King5 again soon.

Very soon.

But just living your dream.

And then I'm I'm able to, like, go from health care to doing what I love every day, which is raising money, writing about food, and just building content on food and being represented.

And pretty much Instagram, which is recipes, Asian dessert recipes pretty much.

Yeah.

Mostly I well, there's cooking in this one, but the people like me more for my baking.

We're going to talk more about Asian baking.

Yeah okay Ken now you can get it right.

Ken, tell me about this website.

Yeah.

I started in 2016 as a hobby.

But then I was doing, like, restaurant food, right?

Like I was just going out to eat, and I wanted to document it.

And then during the pandemic, you know, everything shut down.

And I still wanted to create content.

So for me, it was just like, let's just start cooking, you know?

And I didn't really know what I was doing then.

I was just cooking for the fun of it, you know, and then my background is actually in sales and recruiting, so I've been running a technical recruiting firm for about three years.

And then the economy shifted last year.

And, I saw an opportunity where I was like, do I want to go back and get another job, be in the corporate space, or do something that I really wanted to do?

And I felt like I never gave myself a fair shot of like, really content creating.

So, this past year, I dove back into it full time and really leaned on like the storytelling piece behind it.

Right?

Because I burnt out doing it the first time when I was just for, you know, seeing how many followers I could get.

And, this time around, I found a lot more fulfillment in telling my stories, trying to find, you know, my community that I resonate with as far as, you know, the immigrant stories that I tell.

But, yeah, that's kind of in a nutshell.

I make internet videos.

Yeah.

And recipes.

There's a lot of recipes and not just vitamins, food, but other cultures.

Yeah, I would say like primarily Vietnamese food.

But yeah, I dabble in other stuff.

But like Vietnamese food is what I know best when you get these recipes, is it crowd sourced like Kat?

No.

Usually like from my head, for the most part, but it's like I grew up in the kitchen with my mom for as long as I can remember.

Right?

And I think for me, where it really started was, you know, both my parents, when we immigrated to the States, they were working so much they didn't have time to cook.

Right.

So what my mom would do, though, is she would prep ingredients throughout the week so that whenever my siblings and I got hungry, we can always make food, whenever we wanted.

So for me, that was like my first jump into like really cooking, right?

And Hsiao-Ching and Meilee You got a clever hook.

Because I'll be honest, your third cookbook and I'll let you talk about it.

But if you were to tell me, like, hey, here's a here's a book about Chinese holidays and festivals, I was like, I'm not reading that.

Not reading that.

But but what I did was I didn't know that that's what the book was about.

And I read it because I want to know about Chinese cooking.

And guess what?

It's telling the story about festivals and holidays through cooking.

I thought that was just genius.

Tell me how this came about.

So Feast of Good Fortune is my third book.

And honestly, I, I have a day job, so I wasn't really going to write a third book, but, my editor is here.

She's like, you need to write this book.

But what my intention with it was to create a project where, yeah, let me back up.

So when you are sharing traditions, you actually need to actively have somebody receive those traditions and carry on those practices.

Right?

Because I can talk forever about all of the holidays, all of the foods, all of the things that we do around those holidays.

But if there isn't somebody to actually receive, that knowledge and then to put it into practice, then it's going to die, right?

So I wanted to have, be really intentional about inviting this next generation into the story and giving space for her voice, her generation's voice, to have that representation in the book as well.

So the, the book is about some of these holidays.

It is about some of the foods that we eat and some of the foods that we as Chinese Americans eat around these.

But it's also the story of this kind of this intergenerational story.

You know, how does somebody who's 18 and all of her friends carry on some of these, practices?

She's mixed race.

You know, so it's not and we don't live in, an area where we're surrounded by other people of similar culture.

So how do we carry on?

And so you have to be super intentional about it, and you have to invite that next generation.

I mean, this thing is about voices rising, but if you don't include them in it, in this, this storyline, then how do they know that they need to be the bearers of that moving forward?

Let's talk one holiday.

Thanksgiving is coming up.

Yeah.

So in a biracial family, what's your Thanksgiving menu looks like?

What does that look like?

So it's my husband is the white guy.

And he, he likes his turkey.

Not because he likes the turkey, but he likes the day after turkey sandwich.

So I'm always on the hook for making turkey.

But if it were up to us, we'd probably have duck.

Roasted duck or something, right.

Or pork belly or, you know, but, but what we do is.

Well, we.

Because I like to appease everybody.

I will make all of, everybody's favorites.

So if it's turkey, if it's mashed potatoes, dressing, all those things.

And I had to teach myself how to make all of those things and make them delicious.

But then dry fried green beans will also show up, on the table.

And, scallion pancakes.

Any time, any day, my kids will eat that, like, you know, chips.

So it's stuff like that is like balancing.

Okay.

What, what are the flavors that need to show up?

Because that's what's expected.

And then what are the other things that, can surround, those main characters that can give a little more flavor to it?

So I, I don't personally like turkey, so.

You know, it's I can make it.

I can make a turkey.

You know, when I go to Thanksgiving every year and if it's an Asian family I'm dining with, it's never missed.

It's never been a turkey.

It's always Peking duck with some duck, porchetta, pork belly, porchetta like a rack of lamb.

It's never that something red braised.

I mean, you know.

Yeah.

Kat, Kat.

My grandma grew up in New York City Chinatown made the best soy sauce turkey.

And I wrote about it in spruce eats.

Can also add some fresh fish sauce into gravy and brown butter.

And every year now for Thanksgiving.

So we do Friendsgiving because I have no family around here, just friends.

And I always make a turkey.

And here's the trick I buy it from Whole Foods and then it's already cooked, so you just have to add some seasoning MSG, all right.

And then bake it up.

And then everyone loves it.

But they actually love the ham.

The ham is the star.

And totally on that with the sandwich the next day.

It's my favorite.

So I don't eat turkey a lot.

But every Thanksgiving it has to be turkey.

Just one funny story.

I was like in my 20s, New York City, working at a, home health care agency.

And my boss, she asked me of all of my coworkers.

She said to me, Kat, do you celebrate Thanksgiving?

And I said, do I look like I don't?

I didn't understand that.

So every year I do very proudly celebrate Friendsgiving.

And for you.

Yeah.

Thanksgiving is a whole day feast at my family.

I'm the youngest of six kids, by the way.

I most my siblings live here in the States or here in Seattle.

And in the morning, we'll go over to my parents and my mom makes a huge pot of pho and then for dinner time, that's where we'll do the traditional Thanksgiving.

So my mom will do the turkey, but I'm responsible for all the sides.

So I do the mashed potatoes, the mac and cheese, green bean casserole.

So it's pretty traditional at the end of the day.

So, you know, one, the big experiences, Asian experiences, I think in the last few years, even if you're not in restaurants, it's Covid that affects us in so many different ways.

And I'm very curious, mainly because when Covid hit, you were in high school, correct?

I was finishing out eighth grade, just started high school.

So I want your perspective in terms of being from a biracial family.

What was it like going to high school during the time of Covid or roughly around that time?

Because, well, kids can be mean, as I think a lot of Chinese restaurants have found out when Covid hit.

So what is your experience like?

It was really hard.

I mean, I already I went to a K through eight school growing up, and I was one of three Asian kids in my entire grade.

And it's the same class for nine years.

So constantly surrounded by all these white kids who are really ignorant and but they don't know it yet because we're all young.

But I think once I hit high school, it was because you start high school.

It's all about figuring out, beginning to figure out your identity.

And that's without being in person.

That was such a hard transition, and I think it was a little extra hard for me because, again, I stayed at a very predominantly white high school and didn't really have anybody to help me figure that out.

So it was really hard, but I know I always felt the responsibility to have to, like, educate everybody else on what was going on, and it was just so much of a burden.

And I didn't have time to actually figure out my own personal identity and relationship with my culture.

And I just had to tell other people what, what's going on.

Because early on, I think before Covid.

You wore a Chinese dress if I'm not mistaken.

So what was the reaction when you wear a Chinese dress to class?

I was in kindergarten or first grade when my mom came in to talk to my class about Lunar New Year, and we had like, ni hao kai-lan in a little picture book, and she did like a read aloud to the class.

I remember hiding in a bathroom stall because I was wearing, I had like a yellow traditional Chinese dress, and I was so scared to walk out and sit in front of everybody wearing something so different because everybody else is wearing, like, sweat pants and like jeans.

And I'm like in a super cool outfit, which I didn't know that at the time.

So it was so scary.

And the reaction was what I expected.

I mean, people made fun of me, people.

It was not.

It's really hard.

And I think now I've been able to grow a lot past that.

I've learned a lot more about myself and especially through writing this book with my mom.

I've learned a lot more and been able to connect with my culture.

And like now in my graduation photos, I'm wearing like these pants and my I have a pants, a shirt, not a dress now.

So I've been able to embrace that a lot more.

Did you guys work on this book during Covid?

It was post post pandemic.

Well, post pandemic, yeah.

I see.

So I'm curious, during the pandemic, Hsiao-Ching, what did you guys cook mostly at home because I assume you ate a lot at home, as I recall it.

Yeah, sure.

Just like anybody else.

I mean, we I typically do cook a lot of Chinese food because that's easy for us.

But also, you know, we all like pizza and we all like pasta and all of those things.

So we're, we have teriyaki.

I mean, we like all the things I, I should back up.

I say, though, because I know it is a biracial family and it's three different generations under one roof.

So tell me, who lives in your household?

My mother, who is in the audience today.

So she's our matriarch.

And, and then it's me, my husband, and then Meilee and, Shen, her younger brother.

So does the food vary.

Is a part of, like, your husband's culture and yours, you know, he's the nice Chinese boy that I didn't marry, you know, that I couldn't find.

I've married this white guy who ended up being my nice Chinese boy.

You know, we were talking about parents and expectations and growing up, my dad was like, oh, you got to find a nice Chinese boy to marry.

And that never happened.

But I found Eric, and he, he was early on, just impressed my parents because he was so open to our culture.

And, so he will.

He eats Chinese food with us.

And although I do have to say, you talking about the generations, we kind of have this, we have this table, our dinner table, and my mom and I sit across from each other, and we have for years.

And the the kids sit across from each other.

And then my husband is at one end of the table, and sometimes when I'm making a meal, I'll have things that are more Chinese on our side of the table.

And then on the other side of the table are, stir fries that maybe have a little extra sauce because the white guy likes rice with a lot of sauce.

Right.

And so I make fun of him.

But, you know, it's we all love each other.

But.

So there's, like, the spectrum across the table of, different like that cross-cultural, phenomenon that shows up in how I make food at the table, too.

So even within a Chinese meal, it could be very different.

Yeah.

Now, Ken, doing Covid, you did something that that was insane.

You posted one video a day, right?

For three months.

So tell me how that came about.

And why did you start?

Yeah, I just had a lot of time.

So, I mean, at the start of the Covid.

Right.

Just for your website.

This was just when it was just feed the pudge before I launched my blog.

But, it was the start of pandemic.

I was working until about April for a previous recruiting firm, and then I got laid off.

So I had all this time and I wanted to use that time productively.

So I challenged myself to, to basically produce content and post every single day for three months.

But ultimately I got burnt out and then took a three year break.

But so in that time, though, I mean, like, it was just, you know, nonstop.

Right?

But, like, I didn't have purpose.

Like, I really was just I wanted to, to see how quickly I could grow.

And that's all it was, right?

I don't think of you, like, intended to be sort of, like an outlet for community service and so forth.

But in each way you all did like, I'll take you, for example, because you helped a lot of mom and pop restaurants, Asian restaurants promote their business because unlike mainstream restaurants that hire PR firms and so forth, a lot of Asians, mom and pops don't have that.

Is it just money?

Is it just our culture?

We will just, you know, talk about ourselves and our business.

What do you think?

Because you because that is your clientele.

Yeah, yeah, when I was doing social media marketing back in 2016.

So I created my account to figure out how to grow an account.

And then I use that as a guinea pig to help, you know, restaurants that didn't typically have the marketing budget, and highlight those dishes.

And I think, like, as far as, like a support or like a community aspect, I think that's ingrained in our blood.

Right.

Like, I think having, you know, a lot of siblings, having a big community, I grew up in the church system as well.

And it was just like, that's just what we did.

We just helped each other out.

Yeah.

And, Kat, during the pandemic, you use your outlet to raise $100,000 for a lot of the Asians group.

Tell me how you did that was some of the causes, some of the Asian causes that, you know, a lot of the causes include things in Seattle, ACRS for mental health, because we just don't talk about Asian mental health.

Right.

I I'm sitting here, but I'm actually grieving the loss of my grandmother.

And you probably can't tell it because this is what we do.

We put on this strong face and we just don't care about our own mental health.

I also raise a lot of money for the Wing Luke Museum for the Variation Foundation, which Michelle Lee of King, formerly King5, started.

Welcome to Chinatown.

We raised $15,000 for them from remote like, online bake sales.

So I had like, bakers from Washington, DC host their own bake sales.

I had bakers in Seattle host your own bake sales.

Cindy over there does a lot of our like, fundraising too.

Like we raised $6,000, on a dessert dash at the Variation Foundation Sunday fun Day in October.

And it's all because I just want to give back, you know, I want to use this platform.

People have like 3 million followers.

4 million followers.

They might not always give back.

Right.

But if you have that platform and that voice and that ability to give back, why not?

Right?

Like Ken, why not give back to, you know, Seattle restaurants, right?

What?

Why just keep pushing on them when they're down.

You know, we need to help them.

Like FOB sushi poor FOB sushi with influencers can do something great.

And then influencers can also bring about a lot of pain.

So I want to be on the other end.

I want to be the influencer that could bring about a lot of goodness.

You know, channeling again, the spirit of my father.

Thank you.

Can I add one thing to that?

So, I think it's really important what you said it like.

I think because I have a voice now, I think it's my responsibility to speak up when I can.

And that's very different.

I feel like I've changed a lot over the past couple of years to, where I felt like I was really self-centered for a really long time.

Just focused on me, you know, and this is my daughter right here in the front.

She's, 13.

But she was working on a school project not too long ago about, civic duty.

And she asked me what that meant, and if I felt like I had a responsibility to the world, you know, and I think for a really long time, I would have just been like, nah, I don't know anything to anybody.

You know?

And I think through creating content and really spreading this message of culture, community and really reconnecting with my own heritage, like, we have a responsibility, you know to speak about these things, to really highlight things that, you know, happen in our lives and really promote each other.

Yeah.

And.

Okay, Hsiao-Ching I learned so much from from yours and Meilee's book.

So there is one holiday you mentioned in there.

It's called Tomb Sweeping Day.

Okay.

Explain this to me.

Maybe I'm the only one here to know what that it's about.

Well, it's kind of like day of the dead, where you go and pay respects to those who have passed.

And you, go to the cemetery, you clean up around the tombstone, or, you know, wherever the, wherever the resting place is.

And, and you bring food as offerings to the person who has passed, and then, also share that moment with, with whoever's with you.

So it's just a moment to pay homage to, your ancestors.

Yeah.

I mean, there's there's not a whole lot to explain more than that, other than it's paying respects, and there's always food involved, and there is always food involved.

There is never there's rarely a moment when food isn't involved.

Oh, yeah.

For sure.

Yeah.

So explain this to people out there because I think, let's take something let's take birthdays.

I think when people say, hey what food do you equate with birthdays.

I think a lot of Americans like birthday cakes and candles.

I think for some Asian people, at least in my family, we say birthday.

They'll say longevity noodles.

Explain what that is for people who don't know.

Well, everything means something.

And in a, in food and so there's a lot of, the, the words around the names of foods are often homophones for, well wishes or, you know, other types of really, meaningful sayings.

And so for, birthdays, you want to wish somebody a long life.

So you give them noodles.

You never want to cut the noodles.

So we call them longevity noodles.

They're not necessarily really longer than any other noodle, but it is the wish with which you present that bowl of, delicious noodles.

But, you know, we we have chocolate cake too.

So do you two have a favorite Chinese holiday?

Like a moon festival.

Dragon boat festival.

Lunar.

What is it?

Lunar New Year is my favorite holiday ever.

I've written about it every year.

Every year.

I, I very strategically, we talk about Lunar New Year in all of my books.

So even though this third one is about all the holidays in my previous two books, I also have chapters about Lunar New Year, and like clockwork, they come a calling like, hey, we need to, all the media want to know about Lunar New Year.

So, it's my favorite, but it's my favorite because it is an opportunity for everybody to come together around, a big feast, with a lot of meaning.

And, you know, it's hard sometimes to come home for some of the other holidays because if you're not in Taiwan or China or wherever, there are larger populations of people of your same culture, it's really hard to say, hey, boss, I need to take this, you know, the next two weeks off because it's, you know, Lunar New Year or whatever.

So, so Lunar New Year has, has really hit the mainstream in big ways.

And I think it's, more recognized and, but, you know, it's my favorite because it's, it's my Thanksgiving and Christmas and all those things combined.

And it's she likes it to.

I think for what you guys do, a lot of people are jealous.

I think they want to be in the food industry life, food content, food influencer, food writer, whatever you.

So what advice would you have?

Can you give to people who want to get into this field?

Let's start with you, Kat, because you were a physical therapist when you started.

So for 13 years of my life, I was a doctor of physical therapy.

I gave up that license.

I think it was this last summer.

I don't know, the years just kind of melt by, and then today I am a full time cookbook author, food writer, but it's all freelance.

So if you don't have that 13 years of stability in your background and you don't like invest in yourself or your retirement early on, this is a very hard field to jump into.

Like, I'm sure Ken can tell you to like I do this full time and content creation is just one fourth of it, or maybe one fifth.

It does not pay the bills.

So I'll get like a brand deal with like a general motel and I'll, oh, help me for a few months.

Right.

But it will not pay your bill.

It will not pay your health insurance.

It will not pay for things that suddenly happen, like your car breaks down or, you know, you need heater running because of the bomb cyclone.

Right?

So I would say like, for me it's a very Goldilocks opportunity because, again, I invested myself into a career that my parents pushed me into because they never saw someone like Kat Lieu on the cover of a magazine or on King5 or Komo News or New York City.

You know, they they didn't think that I could be someone in the creative world.

Like my mom still asks me when I'm on TV, she says, did you pay for that?

Did you did you pay them to to print these books?

I'm like, no, mom.

Like she just doesn't understand that there is a field in creativity for Asians.

She she feels like I should be like my sister who's a dentist, my uncle who's a dentist, neurosurgeon and things like that.

Or finance in New York City.

But it it's hard to get here and it's not for everyone.

And I feel like.

But if you really want it like you do what I do, I work from eight to like eight.

And then I also feed my family.

I cook, so my Goldilocks situation is that I cook two meals a day for my family and whatever I cook for them, I turn into content and that's how I'm able to do all of it in a day Hsiao-Ching.

I think your your path is more traditional for a lot of like the latest generation of food writers?

So tell me how you make a living and how do you have time for the cookbooks and the food writing?

Well, so I, I went to journalism school and was a practicing food journalist for a decade.

So and then and then that went away and I had to do other things.

I went into communications.

I went to, life sciences, communications.

I worked at Amazon.

But now how I make a living is that I work at Salesforce.

I'm in marketing, and that's what makes it possible for me to, have cookbook writing now be my side gig.

What used to be my full time job as a food writer?

I was like, you know, poor starving artist.

Even though I was in writing and food.

But like in journalism, you don't really get paid that much, especially if you're a food writer.

So left that, I mean, went through a lot of different iterations, but yeah, the reason I can afford to write books is because I work in tech.

I mean, my books, sell.

Okay.

But I'm not like, Ina I'm not, I'm not Kenji.

You know, we all can't be Kenji.

I mean, Kenji is in a class of his own, but, but it's like.

Well, let me ask this.

So do you encourage your daughter to be in food journalism?

It's so ingrained in you.

Because I remember I encouraged her to be a storyteller, because that's that's what she inherited it.

Whether it's food, whether it's like, whatever it is that she's going to do, she's an artist.

And but she's also, I mean, really, you should let her speak.

No, I was going to ask her, like, are you horrified, Meillee, when you know these horror stories, how tough the industry is.

And I feel bad because know a lot of people are horrified to when they hear how hard it is.

I don't think I'm horrified because, I mean, like my mom said, I like I grew up in a house of storytellers.

I've got I mean, my grandma went to journalism school, my mom went to journalism school.

My dad is a producer, so I grew up surrounded by telling stories.

And I think that made getting started in this industry.

I mean, I'm still just getting started, but over the past couple of years, it's made it a lot less daunting.

And I think I've definitely learned that I, I just need to be who I seek out within that industry.

And be the representation that I always want.

So I think it's not it's not as scary once you actually just take that leap and do what you want to do.

Well, and she, she made, one of her projects.

She made a documentary about, my mother, actually, and that won the, best documentary in the Northwest High School film Festival earlier this year.

So she, you know, filmmaking.

It's not about food filmmaking.

It is about filmmaking and storytelling.

But finding what's around you to tell those stories and the people around you to tell those stories.

Right.

So, you know, your question about how do you get into it?

It's like, well, you kind of need to tell the stories that, you know, and what's around you that happens to be food.

Great.

And I can tell you.

When I was a full time food writer, there were lots of folks who were like, oh, I just, I want to do that.

How do I get into that?

And it's like, well, you don't just one day snap your fingers and decide you're going to be a food writer, right?

Like you have to you have to know how to write.

You have to know how to tell stories.

You have to have some chops in food.

So you don't.

It's so you can work toward that.

But it's not magic.

Snap your fingers, make it happen.

And ken, unlike Hsiao-Ching who started in journalism and food.

You didn't?

So.

Yeah.

I started in tech as well.

So, most recently, I was head of partnerships for a technical recruiting firm.

And, like, like Kat said, is really important.

You have to make a lot of money first and have the financial backing, right?

Because when I started doing this full time, there is no money in it.

Right.

And I wouldn't be able to pour the love and passion that I have into it and spend.

I mean, I work, you know, 60, 70 hours a week creating content at this point.

And I wouldn't be able to do that without having the money that I had saved up prior.

Right.

And I think on the outside looking in, it looks glamorous, but so much work goes into it.

Yeah.

And you did something on your web page that I thought was pretty bold, actually.

So on this web page, the recipes, including a very good recipe for Din Tai Fung green beans?

And if you look at the ingredients, one was MSG?

Here's a secret a lot of recipes for Asians and Chinese food has a msg, but they don't put it that as one of the ingredients.

So, Kat, I know you're a very passionate about this issue, so tell me about where you stand on this.

MSG is basically salt.

That's where I stand on it.

Some people may be sensitive to it, like you would be sensitive to other things, right?

MSG does not have a protein.

It's pretty hard to be allergic to something without a protein.

But I'm not going to discount people who feel sick from MSG.

But if you eat a bag of Doritos, you go to Taco Bell.

You have pizza, lasagna, you have all of those foods, mushrooms and cheese.

And you go, oh, I feel fine.

But it has glutamate in it, which is exactly what MSG is, okay?

It's just made from fermented sugars of kelp and sugarcane.

It's plant based.

It's quite natural.

It's basically a salt.

Put it in your pantries, you know, test it out.

I had someone tell me they sprinkled MSG in a soup every day, right.

And gave it to their friends.

They ate it.

They were fine.

One day the friend saw the msg and all of a sudden they got sick.

So you tell me what this is about, right?

We'll bring out one last question.

That is, I'm very curious when you're not cooking and you guys all cook a lot, where do you eat out?

What restaurant did you head or what's your favorite dish?

Kat.

You go, well, we love Musang.

We love it because my son is half Filipino kari kari and the pandan panna cotta.

I copied it at home.

I made it super jiggly.

Super yummy.

Support your local AAPI businesses.

You know, go out and try all of them.

Don't just go to the ones that have long lines.

Try your mom and pop shops.

Have fun.

You know you don't have to go to where I go or where Kenji goes.

Explore the CID and have fun.

Hsiao-Ching what about you.

Well, we actually do cook a lot at home, but, if we go out, we live in Magnolia, so we go to Yasuko's for teriyaki.

A lot.

It's like old school.

It's.

I'm sorry I took your.

You have the other one, though.

We can share.

Yasuko.

Oh, you have another one, Melee or?

Jade garden Dimsum.

Yeah.

There you go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Kilig is actually one of my favorite restaurants.

Other than that, you know, we spend a lot of time cooking to, so we don't eat out too much.

And I hate that we're ending on me, because when we do, when I go eat, it's like dumb stuff like Panda Express.

You know what, though, I have, I think I think we have, a hang up about Panda Express, but it was created by Asians and and the food.

I mean, what an achievement to be able to do that mass type of cooking at I don't even know how many locations they have across the country.

But there is something to be said for that success story.

And the beef with broccoli ain't that bad.

I like orange chicken, is it?

Yeah, yeah.

And my son, my son, he's 15, he's like mama at Panda.

Can you, can you Venmo me some money?

So I know there are a lot of writers want to be in there.

So I will let you talk to the panel.

Thank you to stick around for five minutes, but we have to shut this down.

Thank you, everyone, for coming.