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113: Lynn Chen: Forging a New Relationship with Food

March 9, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Lynn Chen of The Actor's Diet on The Dinner Special podcast talking about coming to terms with her eating disorder and what she would say to someone struggling.
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Lynn Chen of The Actor's Diet on The Dinner Special podcast talking about forging a new relationship with food.

The Actor’s Diet

On her blog, The Actor’s Diet, Lynn shares restaurant views, fashion and beauty tips, recipes and her life in show biz. She credits her blog for helping her come to terms with her eating disorders and it’s now a place for celebrating food.

An actor, body image activist and podcaster, just to name a few things she’s up to, Lynn is a media maven and she looks like she’s having an awesome time with it.

I’m so psyched to have Lynn Chen of The Actor’s Diet here on the show today.

(*All photos below are Lynn’s.)

On Her Blog:

Lynn Chen of The Actor's Diet on The Dinner Special podcast talking about starting her blog.

In 2009, I was already reading a lot of food blogs, the food blogs that existed. The scene was different in 2009 than it is today but the blogs I was reading at the time, the format that was very popular was food journaling, just basically showing what people ate on a daily basis. And for me, I had been coming to terms with a very tumultuous relationship with food and eating disorders. I was a binge eater and I was also a little bit anorexic.

So for me, finding out what portion sizes were was really tricky. And so, to read these blogs made me feel like I could have a guide as to how much you were supposed to eat, and to feel full or satiated. So that’s how it started. I was reading these food blogs and then one day I was like, “I wonder if I should start a food blog?”

When I started, not only was the food blog scene different but the acting scene was different, where in my industry, you were just an actor. You weren’t an actor/blogger/anything else, which is acceptable today but back then, it just wasn’t. And it was like, “No, you’re an actor, you have to just act, you should not show your personal side because no one wants to see your business.” And actually what happened was, I was fired by both my agent and my manager and instead of trying to find a new agent and a manager, which I knew I could have done, I was like, “Let me take a year to come to terms with this whole food thing and what do I have to lose?”

If I just stop acting, and stop having a job that requires me to look a certain way, and take that pressure off of me and try to forge this new relationship with food, let’s see what happens. At the time, I was also trying to get pregnant. So, I was like, “Let’s just see what happens.” And the blog started initially as a food journal and it was me and my friend Christy Meyers, a holistic health counselor and we were basically just posting what we ate every day, and it just blew up.

And for Christy, it became very clear after a while, she was like, “I don’t want to do this,” because she was already counseling clients one-on-one. It was, the last thing I want to do at the end of the day is write more about food and also she didn’t want her clients to read it and be like, “Hey, you ate chocolate cake. What’s the deal?” So, she backed away from it and I kept going and over the years, I just have switched the format a little bit, where I’m not posting everything I’m eating on a daily basis, which gets old. It’s been almost seven years now. It’s crazy.

On Coming to Terms with Her Eating Disorder:

Lynn Chen of The Actor's Diet on The Dinner Special podcast talking about coming to terms with her eating disorder and what she would say to someone struggling.

I think that when I was in recovery, they were always saying to me, you don’t just give up an addiction. It’s not like you can just be like that’s it, I’m done. You have to replace it with something. And so, for me, instead of focusing on counting calories or figuring out how much fat content was in something, I was figuring out how to make the photograph look beautiful, and I was focused on this new obsession, this new way of writing about food and talking about food, which took my focus off of what I looked like, what I was ingesting, but still fed that part of me that needed to be obsessive about food.

And also, not only was the creative side of me fulfilled, but just getting so much free food as a food blogger, I didn’t feel like anything was off limits because when you have a house that’s full of potato chips, the last thing you feel like doing is binge eating potato chips because there so many. You can only do that for so long. So, it really helped me come to terms with that whole concept of, “Oh, I have to eat this because this may be the last time.” There was no last supper for me anymore.

That was always the problem for me in the past, I was binge eating because, “That’s it, this is the last time and then tomorrow I go on my diet.” There was no diet anymore, there was no last supper, it was just always there and then it lost its appeal, its magic. It just became what it was.

On What She Would Say to Someone Struggling with an Eating Disorder:

I hear you, is what I would say to them because there were so many years, where I was not only struggling but I was also getting help simultaneously and I was like, “What’s going on? How come I’m not getting better? How come I’m doing everything I think I’m supposed to be doing and it’s still not getting any better?” And it was years of that. I really, truly think that it does get better and I can’t give you any magic formula, just like no one else could give me a magic formula to get better. I’m living proof that it happens.

So if I can just be the embodiment and let you know that it happens and you’ll get better. You just will, I know you will but you just have to keep at it. I would say, don’t beat yourself up because, for me, it would always be like, I was “good” for six months and then I fell off the wagon and then I’d have three months of being off the wagon and just be like, “I can never get back.” That’s just the way it was for a long time, and eventually, it stopped being that way.

On Thick Dumpling Skin:

Lynn Chen of The Actor's Diet on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her website Thick Dumpling Skin.

Thick Dumpling Skin came about because, for the first few years of writing The Actor’s Diet, I was writing a lot about my eating disorder, obviously because I was coming to terms with it and I got such a response from so many people, and it was so specifically about culture and our families. It was just something that I could really relate to as an Asian American being in a culture, where we don’t really talk about our feelings.

When we socialize and gather, it’s all about the food, not how are you doing? It’s how much have you eaten and have you eaten? And, oh try this, and you’ve got to get the recipe. I felt like because it was such a serious topic and it was coming up so often, I didn’t want my blog, The Actor’s Diet to become just a site for that, I wanted to give it another place. I was listening to NPR one day and I heard this interview with a woman named Lisa Lee talking about how she went to Taiwan and was forced to go on this diet and that it was just okay.

It was considered totally fine to starve herself, and I was like, “Who is this woman, I need to connect with her.” I went on Facebook, I looked her up, we had 40 friends in common. I went to the person at the top of the list, he introduced us and the next thing you know, I’m connected with Lisa Lee and she’s like, “We have to do something.” We thought about making a book, we thought about making a documentary, then we were like, “Let’s just blog.”

So, we started Thick Dumpling Skin and immediately heard from all these people who wanted to share their story. And all these years later, we’ve been in NPR ourselves, we’ve been in Marie Claire. We’re still the only source that exists on the Internet for Asian-Americans and that just shows me how much more work we have to do. Because people still think of eating disorders as a primarily white, middle-class woman problem, and we see that it’s not. But the problem is, especially in the Asian-American community, therapy is not an option for a lot of people.

People don’t want you talking to strangers and paying them. That doesn’t make sense to them. So for a lot of, especially younger people who are still under their parents’ rules and insurance, they have no one to talk to, so we are hoping that our site is a place for them.

On the Thick Dumpling Skin Podcast:

What I love about the podcast formula, is that you can just talk off the top of your head and I think that a lot of, when you’re talking about body image and you’re talking about eating issues, when we write it out, you feel this responsibility to be so precious with your words and to edit yourself. And I think that in order to have this dialogue, we need to have it in everyday conversation.

So, what we hope is that, with the podcasts, we want to go to the experts, get them on the phone, have them answer the questions because I’m not comfortable answering questions that are that serious.

On Her Videos:

Lynn Chen of The Actor's Diet on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her videos.

Well, my husband works at BuzzFeed, so full disclosure on that, and the reason I started YouTubing, was because, it’s funny, so my husband would just be like, “I have to make a video today. You want to eat donuts?” and I’d be like, “Yes, I’m not doing anything, let’s go and eat donuts.” So we just started making these videos when he was free and when I was free for his job and I started to grow a following from it and people started subscribing to my YouTube channel. which before that had only been movies I’d been in and clips from other YouTube interviews that I had done, nothing that I created on my own. And since people were subscribing, I was like, “Oh, I think I should create some content for new subscribers, otherwise, I’m wasting time. So being on BuzzFeed, has been really interesting because it’s opened me up to a completely different audience.

The same exact week I was on Fear The Walking Dead, which was the number one cable premier ever in the history of TV. I was a guest star on that and more people recognized me from BuzzFeed videos than from being on Fear The Walking Dead. But they didn’t know who I was, they were just like, BuzzFeed. They didn’t know my name or anything and in that, I realized, “Oh, I think I should try to do a little shift,” because I’ve been acting since I was five years old, doing this a long time and let’s just see what happens if I shift things around. So, I have new managers, they’re mainly focused on me as a blogger, as a food person, as a food host and we are going for it. We are going for the hosting TV stuff. I want to be the first Asian-American female to host her own show on Food Network.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I watch so many cooking shows. It’s not even funny how many cooking shows I watch. They’re mostly, not competition.

I watch everything from the stuff on The Food Network and Cooking Channel that’s demonstrational, like The Pioneer Woman, The Barefoot Contessa. I even watch Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee, which doesn’t even exist anymore. I watch The Kitchen, I watch America’s Test Kitchen, I watch The Chew. I just watch a lot of food shows.

What are some food blogs or food websites we have to know about?

Well, you’ve actually had a couple of them on your podcast already as guests. Lily from Kale & Caramel. I also read CakeSpy on a regular basis. There are a lot of blogs that I’ve been following since the beginning, like Kath Eats Real Food. She was one of the main reason I became a blogger. She knows I love her and I’ve just been following her and her life forever.

I like Cupcakes & Cashmere, she lives in my neighborhood, so I stalk her online, so embarrassing. She’s great. I love her site and I like seeing parts of my neighborhood pop up on her site, makes me feel like seeing someone I know on TV. And Joy the Baker. She’s somebody I followed for a very long time and I’ve loved every incarnation of everything that she’s done. She has an Instagram feed now called Drake On Cake where she makes cakes and puts Drake lyrics on them and it’s of course, exploded the Internet as is everything she does. So, she’s great.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook or Snapchat that make you happy?

My friend, Leslie Durso is a vegan chef and I just love keeping in touch with her on Snapchat. My friend Whitney Adams, she has a great YouTube channel as well, she’s a wine expert. She is hilarious on Snapchat. I’m just starting to get into the Snapchat game, it’s not something for people over 20-something. So it’s a little strange, but I like that world a lot right now because it’s people being honest and real because it disappears.

What is the most unusual or treasured item in your kitchen?

I’m not too sentimental about stuff in my kitchen. Things break all the time but I guess, if there was something I was the most sentimental about, it would have to be my mug from college, my Wesleyan mug. It has four chips in it because I’ve dropped it but I can’t bring myself to throw it away because I went to college with it.

I think I ate ramen out of it, I can’t get rid of it. So I use that all the time but looks like crap.

Name one ingredient you used to dislike but now you love.

I like everything, except, you know what I didn’t like growing up was raw tomatoes, on their own, I don’t even think I would go near one. In fact, when I was younger, and I used to drink a lot of orange juice, my mom would pour it for me and I would drink it and be like, “No, that tastes like raw tomatoes.” I think because I thought it would taste like V8.

Sometimes I remember being a jerk and refusing to drink my orange juice, even though I liked orange juice because I’d be like, “It tastes like raw tomatoes.” I like raw tomatoes today, not like eating them like apples or anything.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I don’t cook from cookbooks that often, but I do use them as inspiration. Actually, a very sentimental item to me, is The Moosewood Cookbook. It’s probably a cookbook that I’ve had since college. It was what I first learned to cook from because I used to be a vegetarian and I still use it as inspiration sometimes. I just love that, it’s all hand drawn and it just reminds me of being young and not knowing what oregano was. How far have we come?

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I don’t listen to music anymore. As I said, I listen to all these podcasts but I guess, you know what puts me in the mood to cook is, it’s a song, The Frim Fram Sauce, do you know that song?

It’s a jazz standard but there’s a great version of it that I think it’s Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald do. It’s a great song, it’s all about food.

On Keeping Posted with Lynn:

Lynn Chen of The Actor's Diet on The Dinner Special podcast talking about keeping posted with Lynn.

I think probably Facebook. I have double Instagrams, double Facebooks, The Actor’s Diet and Lynn Chen because one is for the blog, initially one was for acting but now, those worlds sort of coincided with one another. So, if you want to know what’s going on with me, I think the Lynn Chen Facebook fan page is probably the best one because I put everything that’s the most important to me there.

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Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Actor, America's Test Kitchen, Anorexia, Binge Eating, Blogger, BuzzFeed, CakeSpy, Cupcakes & Cashmere, Drake on Cake, Eating Disorder, Ella Fitzgerald, Fear the Walking Dead, Joy the Baker, Kale & Caramel, Kath Eats Real Food, Leslie Durso, Lisa Lee, Louis Armstrong, Lynn Chen, NPR, Podcaster, Sandra Lee, The Actor's Diet, The Barefoot Contessa, The Chew, The Frim Fram Sauce, The Kitchen, The Moosewood Cookbook, The Pioneer Woman, Thick Dumpling Skin, Wesleyan, Whitney Adams

045: Megan DeKok: Simple Ways to Experiment in the Kitchen

June 5, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Megan DeKok of Take A Megabite on The Dinner Special podcast
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Megan DeKok of Take a Megabite on The Dinner Special podcast sharing some simple ways to experiment in the kitchen

Take A Megabite

Baker by night, and freelance food stylist, Megan tries to incorporate her love of food in everything that she does. Take A Megabite has been featured on CNN, Buzzfeed, The Kitchn, and Food Gawker just to name a few. And when she is not remixing childhood favorites or experimenting with new ideas, Megan contributes to the Betty Crocker website.

I am so happy to have Megan DeKok of Take A Megabite here on the show today.

On Writing About Cooking and Food:

Well, I grew up eating a lot of good homemade stuff all the time. And it was the combo of getting done with school and being like, “What am I supposed to do after work?,” kinda thing.

I felt like I had so much spare time. On top of that, my parents moved away. So I had to count on myself for homemade goodness. I just start figuring out how to make stuff my mom made all the time. Calling her and being like, “Is this weird? Is this supposed to be happening? It’s not working! It’s working!” And, you know, figuring stuff out that way.

I didn’t really cook that much when I was little. But cookies, chocolate chip cookies, were the main thing. So my mom made those all the time so those were the only thing that I ever did make, or like over easy eggs for my dad.

I started it because I liked it, and I think it just translated. Like how much I liked it and how much fun I was having just was apparent, maybe. I don’t know. So it actually worked out. I now work, I do social media. So I do photographing and design and stuff for a brand at an agency.

They found me through my blog. So it’s just kind of evolved naturally into my career, I guess.

On Her Food and Cooking Influences:

Definitely my mom. She’s an awesome baker and a good cook.

The first food blog I ever looked at was Joy The Baker and so she totally inspired me to start my site. I like her. She likes baking a lot also. I feel like her and I have things in common.

And then, looking at cookbooks. Beautiful cookbooks and vintage ones. I love all the illustrations in the vintage Betty Crocker versus like the newfangled designs.

When she (mom) comes to town, I always try to make at least one thing that she’s never had. Or something she might think was a little weird and try to win her over with it.

Occasionally, now, she actually calls me for food things. So it’s switched a little bit, which is fun. And when she visits too, I always try to be like, “Let’s make one thing that I’ve never made before or you’ve never made.” She’s really good at pies, “So let’s make a pie.” It’s pretty fun.

On Deciding on What to Make on Her Blog:

Megan DeKok of Take A Megabite on The Dinner Special podcast

I’m inspired a lot by Pinterest. I’m constantly pinning recipes I want to make.

I guess I like making things where it’s like one dessert in a different form, so it’s like blueberry cheesecake but made into an ice cream flavor with goat cheese! I really like the idea of making one thing into something else. Or taking a different view on it.

On How Homemade Things Excite Her:

It’s something about knowing everything that’s in your food. There’s nothing weird and it’s not like you’re eating something processed where there’s a million ingredients. It’s really fun to know. Like, “Oh, you’ve got everything in the pantry to make this awesome stir-fry.”

Banana bread’s no big deal. You know you’ve got the stuff. Just switch up the sugar, use coconut oil, whatever. I really like the simplicity, but also like how delicious it can be, I guess.

I will think like, “Okay, I want to make banana bread, for sure.” I make it a lot, actually. I made it today. So, I’ll just be like, “Okay, I want to make that but I’m going to use grape seed oil, and this time, I have muscovado sugar.” So I’m going to use that in it. And then, I actually have a little bit of granola leftover, so I’ll put that on the top of it.

On Easy Ways to Start Experimenting in the Kitchen:

I’m not sure I’m answering this right, so you can let me know. Lately I’ve been making this roasted vegetable stir-fry thing. So it’s not a stir-fry because you’re roasting, but it’s just roast every vegetable you have. And then make a simple sauce that’s like almond butter and sesame oil and soy sauce, brown sugar, Sriracha, and it’s changed everything. I’m like, “All I want to do is make this stir-fry everyday.” It’s super easy, but it’s also delicious. And impressive looking.

There’s been times where it’s like, “Oh, I didn’t have blueberries.” So I used this berry instead and that’s awesome. I guess there was a time where I was going to make a berry crumble but I only had plums. So I made a plum crumble, and I never baked with them before. I was like, “This is awesome! I loved it and it was so pretty.” So I guess like that would be an example. Baking with a fruit that you have on hand that you wouldn’t normally.

On Valentine’s Day:

Well, I guess it’s because I love love, first of all. And I just loved it ever since high school, even.

It doesn’t matter if I’m single or in a relationship. It’s not even about that. It’s more about, first of all, it’s the prettiest holiday. The colors, the decorations, but mostly I like to think of Valentine’s Day as a day to show everybody that you care about that you care about them.

I have a brunch party every year. I’ve had it seven years now. And it’s so much fun and I think it just kind of makes the holiday something special to people who would normally think like, “Ah, Hallmark holiday, who cares”? But then, you turned it into a really fun day with food and mimosas.

I’ve upped my game every year since. The first year, I invited like 10 people. I’ve based the guest list on how many champagne glasses I had. And this year, I got up to 28 people invited. So it’s gotten a little bigger. I think I’m just one of those people that once I start something, I just keep doing it until I don’t care about it anymore.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

The truth is, I only have Netflix and I don’t have cable anymore. But when I did, I would watch Chopped quite a bit.

What are some food blogs or food websites we have to know about?

I would say Food52 is really cool. They also have a shop that’s awesome. Where I might have bought purple jars from bed the other morning. Because I was like, “Woah, purple jars! Limited edition!” So there’s that.

Food blog-wise, I know Dula Notes was just on here. I really love her. She’s really fun. I like her seasonal goodness.

Hungry Girl por Vida. That one’s really good. My Friend Cindy has mad food styling skills.

And, Wit & Vinegar and My Name is Yeh, definitely. There’s a million I feel like I could list.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook that make you happy?

Well, on Instagram, it’s for sure, Shop Bando and Jen Gotch. Theirs are so happy and awesome, it’s just like constant positivity, pretty colors, it’s great.

My Name is Yeh, also, is awesome on Instagram. She has made such awesome cakes. They’re so pretty. And she does a lot of marzipan animal cutouts which is the cutest.

I like Bev Cooks. She’s got these twin babies that are pretty adorable.

And then Harlow and Sage. I don’t know why babies sent me straight to puppies, but, it’s like three dogs are best friends.

What is the most unusual or treasured item in your kitchen?

I would say it’s a toss-up between my gold french press, which I love and use everyday basically. And then, I have these enamel wear pots that I really love. They’re vintage and one of them is yellow with little crowns on it. And I’ve got a royal blue one. I really love those.

Name one ingredient you used to dislike but now you love.

I would say sweet potatoes. I never cared about them. I was like, “Who cares about sweet potatoes?” I just thought of them as like, thanksgiving marshmallow situation.

But then as soon as I starting making them savory all the time and not trying to add pecans and marshmallow fluff to them, I was like, “Hell yeah!” So I’m putting them in my quesadillas, and in stir-fry. And adding them to brioche buns. I love them now.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I would say the Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream cookbooks. She has two of them. They both are awesome.

The Top With Cinnamon cookbook is so good and beautiful.

I really like the new Joy the Baker cookbook. It’s got a lot of good baking recipes in there.

Also like the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook. It’s just a small cookbook but their basic cupcake is like, “What’s up.” It’s like one stick of butter. For a dozen cakes, it’s awesome.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Well, I was thinking about this because it goes from like Otis Redding, like records or listening to him on Spotify. Or Katy Perry and Lady Gaga. It’s a big jump there.

I guess it’s either fun, soul type stuff, or it’s lady tunes of the most embarrassing level. I mean, I’ll tell people I like it, but, I mean, it’s not necessarily cool.

On Keeping Posted on Megan:

You can follow me on Facebook, and Instagram, and Twitter mostly. I’m on there as Take A Megabite. It’s easy to find. On Pinterest also.

 

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Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Betty Crocker, Bev Cooks, BuzzFeed, Childhood Favorites, Chopped, CNN, Dula Notes, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Food Gawker, Food Stylist, Food52, Harlow and Sage, Homemade, Hummingbird Bakery, Hungry Girl Por Vida, Jen Gotch, Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream, Joy the Baker, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Megan DeKok, My Name is Yeh, Otis Redding, Shop Bando, Take a Megabite, The Kitchn, Top with Cinnamon, Valentine's Day, Wit & Vinegar

Hello! I'm Gabriel Soh, home cook, food enthusiast and your host of The Dinner Special podcast.
Everything here on The Dinner Special is an experiment, just like with cooking. Thank you for listening and being part of the adventure.

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