Chinese food | The Dinner Special podcast

103: Kaitlin Leung: Connecting with Family Through Cooking

December 30, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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The Woks of Life

The Woks of Life is written by Bill, Judy, Sarah and Kaitlin a family that has been cooking and serving up meals for a combined 139 years. Their blog is for anyone looking to try their hand at grade A authentic Chinese cooking whatever their background may be. The Woks of Life were the 2015 Saveur Blog Awards winners in Readers’ Choice Best Special Interest Blog, as well as Editors’ Choice Best Special Interest Blog.

I’m so psyched to have Kaitlin Leung of The Woks of Life with me here today.

(*All photos are The Woks of Life’s.)

On Starting The Woks of Life:

Food blogs are not new obviously but there were a couple of big ones that we did follow, me and my sister mainly, which were The Pioneer Woman. So she kind of blew up and she has her own show and she is like a complete celebrity now and also Smitten Kitchen. So those were the two blogs mainly that we enjoyed looking at and that sparked the idea like, “Why can’t we start a food blog too?”

After she (Sarah) graduated she wasn’t really sure what she wanted to do and she had the whole summer to think about that. So she came up with this idea of starting a food blog. My mom and I were pretty excited to help out and start cooking things and take photos. So it organically became this family thing. She had the idea we could call it The Woks of Life, and we could be the four people at the center of it, and it could be a family thing.

At the time my parents were sort of transitioning into that idea of living in Beijing and then I think four months after the blog was started they actually did move. I’m getting my timing a little bit wrong but she graduated and they were moving to Beijing and everything was kind of in flux.

It was a good way for us to gather our family recipes and have a way to connect with each other across spaces. We communicated mainly through iMessage, Skype and emails. I would email my sister from the library at midnight being like, “Hey, I’m really bored what did you eat today?” That kind of little small talk, chit chat that you would normally have but you don’t really have when you are at two different schools and your parents are living in Beijing. It was all sending pictures of food that we made and we were almost already in the mindset. So to actually make it official was not that big of a job. It became a great family thing and a way for us to stay connected.

On Growing Up in a Family Where Food Played a Big Role:

Growing up it was always gathering around a big table full of food, and everybody reaching across loading up their plates. It was just a really great atmosphere. My dad was very active in the kitchen and his sisters loved to cook too. So from a young age we were like sponges just soaking up all this cooking knowledge and the Food Network. Those were the glory days of the Food Network, classics like Emeril Lagasse and Rachael Ray was just starting and Giada De Laurentiis, she was unmarried and without her baby so that was when she was starting out too. It was a really great time to be interested in food.

We would always just be in the kitchen like, “What are you doing? Why are you doing that,” it’s a passive and an active thing. You’re just watching but at some point you kind of have to roll up your sleeves and when me and my sister were teenagers my parents would have dinner parties and we were like catering staff. We knew so much and we could handle so much. All of my parents friends would be like, “Oh my God your daughters, they are so effective in the kitchen.”

It was kind of always growing up with that mentality of food is important and food is at the center and that’s the big reason why we get together, extended family too, it’s let’s get together and have a barbecue or let’s go get dim sum. It’s just an integral part of not just our family specifically but I feel like the Asian experience in general. You have a big extended family and what’s the best thing to do when you have all these huge amounts of people in the room? You eat.

On Learning About Chinese Cooking:

When we were younger you’re seeing Emeril and you’re seeing Rachel Ray and they’re not making Chinese food. So it kind of got to a point where it was… my grandma always loved saying this to her friends. She brags about us like, “Anything you want, they can make it,” it doesn’t necessarily apply to Chinese food. So when my parents moved to Beijing it was tough because I never ate Chinese food anymore.

You can’t go home and have a home cooked meal. That was another big part of why we wanted to start the blog, is documenting these recipes, which for years was like, “a little this, a little that,” like, “eyeball it, just pour it until it feels right.” You can’t really make that. So Chinese cooking has definitely taken on a bigger part of our repertoire, I guess for me and Sarah, but it was always within the expertise of my parents.

On What Authentic Chinese Food is to Her:

For me personally authentic Chinese food is the food that I grew up eating. It’s the Cantonese spread of salt and pepper pork chops and the pork bone soup and the big plate of green veggies with garlic and the steamed fish. It’s all that but I think that today when you think about traditional Chinese food it’s almost like it’s more about who made it for you.

The food itself is anything that tastes good that’s pretty traditional. I guess authentic is traditional. But I think that it’s almost more important who made it for you. Going into Queens to visit my grandparents and going to the restaurants around there, a lot of those places are owned by people that are technically Chinese citizens but they opened a restaurant in Flushing, Queens. It’s almost in my mind this set of dishes that my family makes most often and eats most often. So you could watch A Bite of China which is this documentary and there’s tons and tons of variety and dishes that you could have that are traditional and authentic, but to me it doesn’t resonate as much because I didn’t grow up eating it.

On Who in the Family is More Traditional and Who Likes to Experiment:

I would say my mother is definitely the most traditional which makes sense because she grew up China and she came over to the U.S. when she was 16. So she definitely has the most knowledge so therefore the most respect for those traditional dishes. I think my dad has a similar level of traditionalism but he grew up more on the Americanized Cantonese side of things. So he has more of an expertise in take-out dishes. He is the king of General Tso’s chicken and the pork fried rices and the lo meins, he can churn out anything.

In terms of who’s the most experimental? I think it’s probably a tie between me and my sister. I think we sort of alternate in our bolts of lightning moments of culinary brilliance. There’s one dish that she made that was so good. It was kimchi french fries and it’s this delicious kimchi mixture and then you put over french fries and then you put cheese on top and it’s 10 times better than chili cheese fries. But chili cheese fries are also good.

And then I’ll make something like Sichuan peppercorn Cacio e Pepe. Which is just cheese and black peppercorns but I wanted to incorporate an Asian spin so I used Sichuan peppercorns and white peppercorns and black peppercorns. It can become hard honestly to come up with those interesting ideas. You can’t fully hang your hat on just traditional Chinese food because that’s good but sometimes you just want something more interesting. We’re definitely always watching and seeing what the food world is doing and trying to get ideas.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I do watch The Pioneer Woman just because it’s a wonderful escape from real life. She’s got this amazing ranch and she makes all this delicious, comforting, fatty food, it’s great. I love that show and Jamie at Home. That was a short lived show but that was a really good show by Jamie Oliver. He has a beautiful garden, he sits outside with a little cutting board and just cuts and reaches over and plucks fresh herbs, it’s great.

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

So the sense that we get in the food blog world is that there’s just so many blogs out there and I think a lot of them don’t get enough credit because everybody’s really passionate about food and just telling their story. A couple that we like, one of them would be, Omnivore’s Cookbook which is this girl named Maggie and she actually was living in Beijing at the same time as we were and my sister and her actually met up and talked about food. She has a great blog that has authentic recipes. She makes them a little bit easier and more approachable but they still have that good authentic taste of Chinese food. So we really like her blog.

Another blog would be Little Cooking Tips which is a really cute, really friendly couple in Greece named Panos and Mirella, and they are so nice. They have really good Greek recipes. I just was on their website today and they had a finger licking feta and sausage mac and cheese. That sounds really good. They have a lot of good fusion Greek recipes. So we definitely like them. Hummingbird High, I think she was one of your most recent podcast guest. Her photography is gorgeous and her cakes look so good. Every time I want cake I just go to her Instagram and then I visually eat it.

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

I’m not sure about Pinterest because that’s my mother’s domain. She is the Pinterest master but on Instagram we follow a bunch of people. But I would say a couple of really good accounts are…there’s one by Dennis The Prescott, his photography is gorgeous and all of his food just looks so freakin yummy. He’s just one of those people that I go to time and time again.

Another one that I really like is Symmetry Breakfast. I think it’s a couple and they just take pictures of breakfasts that they have together and it’s perfectly symmetrical. It’s just so perfect for somebody who’s a little OCD like me. It’s just beautiful, I love it. They’ve got really great stuff. They have like a bagette that’s cut open and baked with eggs inside. They know how to live. They eat good for breakfast. I just roll out of bed and I’m lucky if I have a piece of toast. So those are just a couple that I like but there are so many people on Instagram that have just amazing photography. It can be hard to keep up because so many people are just putting out amazing content but those are two that I love.

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

I would say unusual for a nonChinese audience that is actually very useful is a tong device for picking up plates. If you put a hot dish in a steamer you don’t want to grab it and it kind of goes like this and then you can grab the plate and lift it out. That’s a really amazing underrated and not that well known tool. So for anybody listening, you should go buy one.

Most treasured I would say is probably my grandfather’s cleavers from my dad’s side. He was a chef and they actually had a Chinese restaurant for a number of years. We have his old cleaver that actually has his initials carved in the side. Because there are a bunch of chefs in the kitchen and you want to differentiate which one’s yours. We don’t use that one often but it’s still very sharp. It’s interesting. It’s years and years old but it’s still really good.

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

Cilantro. I didn’t hate it. There are some people out there that hate cilantro, I never hated it but I never really liked it maybe until I was 14. It adds so much flavor. If you have a guacamole that has no cilantro, I’m sorry, but that’s not real guacamole. You need it. When you’re putting it on steamed fish with soy sauce and scallions and ginger, you need the cilantro, it adds a little something.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Ina Garten has a cookbook that is… I don’t know exactly what it’s called but it’s the pink one so people that know Ina Garten’s cookbook, there’s a blue one and there’s an orange one. But the orange one is Barefoot in Paris and there’s a pink one which is her basics cookbook. There is a chocolate cake recipe in that cookbook called Beatty’s Chocolate Cake it changed my life. This chocolate cake recipe is the only one you will ever need. It’s so moist and the frosting is perfect. It’s kind of sad actually because if you flip through the whole book, almost every page is totally pristine, and then when you go to this chocolate cake recipe, there’s just schmutz all over it. There are stains and drips of buttermilk because that’s how often I make that cake. This is more of a PSA than an interview question I feel because that cake is truly the best. We make it for friends and they rave. They love it.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

For my sister it would definitely be Nat King Cole. For me, I would say, if anybody’s ever seen the movie Something’s Gotta Give with Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson, that soundtrack is our favorite for cooking. It’s all French bistro music and whets your appetite and you feel so jazzy walking around the kitchen.

On Keeping Posted with The Woks of Life:

The best way to keep posted is to follow us on Facebook or Instagram. If you use Twitter, definitely follow us on Twitter, and I would say subscribe to our email list because we send out an email noon everyday when we have a new recipe.

097: Lisa Lin: How a Lawyer Became a Food Blogger

December 7, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Healthy Nibbles and Bits

Lisa is a lawyer turned food blogger and on Healthy Nibbles and Bits is where she shares simple, healthy recipes with bold flavors. She loves experimenting in the kitchen and can talk about food all day.

I am so happy to have Lisa Lin of Healthy Nibbles and Bits with me here today.

(*All photos below are Lisa’s.)

On Being a Lawyer and Becoming a Food Blogger:

Long story. I’ve been cooking a lot for my family and then I kept cooking while I was in college. And then when I got to law school I actually devoted every Sunday afternoon to cooking. It was just sort of my time to not study and also I always cooked my own meals because I got tired of all the stuff that was around school. Just all of these sandwich shops. So I really cooked a lot during law school and that’s when I started following food blogs.

When I finished law school and I moved back to the Bay Area and I was trying to find a job, I just kept following more blogs just to distract myself. That’s how I fell into food blogging. I think my husband who was my boyfriend at the time just said, “Well, why don’t you start one yourself?” Which was actually really daunting because the last blog I ever had was a Xanga.

I wrote about stupid things like Backstreet Boys and what happened at school and I was thinking like, “There’s no way I’m going to write a food blog because it’s going to be the same stuff.” But I just fell in love with testing and creating recipes and talking about it and that’s just how it all happened. So there’s no real logical transition from lawyer to food blogging but it was just something that I’ve always been doing. It just sort of blossomed into a passion.

On Being Fearless in the Kitchen:

First of all I don’t really have formal culinary training and so the only way you learn is by experimenting with flavors and cooking. Sometimes I blend things that don’t make sense at all. I was trying to make a cauliflower cake once and I used purple cauliflower thinking the color would look good. It looks nasty. It was just this weird bluish color. But you have to do it and you do it until you learn and you write it down, make sure you don’t do it again.

On Her Curiosity Around Cooking and Food:

When I was younger I was just more into books and that kind of explains why I kept going through so much schooling. But there were always times my mom forced me to help her cook. So there are all these big Chinese holidays that we have to cook for. Chinese New Year’s, the Dragon Boat Festival we make those rice wrapped in bamboo leaf things. I don’t know what they’re called. Rice cakes. So I would help my mom with that all the time and so through that that’s how I started cooking.

I was always very interested because it’s very involved. All those cakes, my mom makes it from scratch so it comes from the dough and the flour, and you press it out and everything, and then fill it, and then fold it. I was very interested in the very difficult cooking projects. But then when my mom made me cook for the family just on week nights, I was definitely way less interested in that because stir fry is just not as sexy as making dumplings. But I’m very thankful that my mom forced me to cook for the family because otherwise I wouldn’t have cooked for myself in college and onward.

On Her Food Heroes:

I guess my mom is one of my food heroes. She loves to cook and she loves to experiment. And I’ve sort of, because of that, assumed that all Chinese moms love to cook which is not the case at all.

I think I took it for granted and she has an innate curiosity to try to recreate what she eats. I think I picked it up from her. It gets a bit annoying, but whenever we go to eat Dim Sum she’d say, “Well, I can make this at home.” And it’s like, “Yeah. That’s not the point, mom.” But I do look up to her. There’s a lot of Chinese dishes that I wish I could make or famous cake that I wish I could bake one day. So she’s definitely one of my early, early food heroes. And then I would have to say when I was a kid I loved Martin Yan.

His show always aired on PBS on Saturday afternoons and I always watched it. And I love the show and I really admire what he has done for raising awareness about Chinese food in America. I really think he’s one of the pioneers of introducing Chinese cuisine. And he’s done so much to travel around China and he’s written a lot of books. So I definitely admire him.

On What She Would Make for Martin Yan:

Oh my gosh. That would be so intimidating because I’m sure he’s had everything. But if I were to do something it definitely can’t be a traditional Chinese dish because he has done it so much, he has done it so well. You just don’t do that. He just won’t appreciate it. I’ve done a General Tso’s brussels sprouts dish. So you kind of get the General Tso’s chicken flavors and then you blend it into brussels sprouts so it’s something that might fit his pallet but a bit unexpected. I would probably make that for him.

On Her Blog:

When I first started I didn’t even think I was going to be doing food blogging to the extent that I would right now. But it’s definitely not what I expected. I just wanted, initially, to test other peoples’ recipes and just blog about what I tested because that’s what I had been doing for a few years. I didn’t expect that I would have to buy a new camera, learn how to edit my photos, be engaged on social media because I only had a Facebook account and Pinterest that I used occasionally at that point.

And I really didn’t expect the business skills you have to develop for running a food blog because we do have to make money, too. And if you asked me 10 years ago whether or not I would become a business woman, I’d be like, “You’re crazy.” Because I was always about books and being an academic. But this entrepreneurial spirit was nowhere inside of my blood. So those are definitely things I picked up and I didn’t realize I had to do when I first started it.

On Where She Finds Inspiration:

A lot of different sources. One big thing is what’s in season. Then I look at what I’ve been posting on the blog lately. Do I maybe tone down on sweets now and do something savory? Magazines, I subscribe to maybe six or seven food magazines just so I can learn and get inspired. And food websites. Sometimes it’s based on what I eat at a restaurant, too. Things like that and then sometimes other food bloggers, too.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

The Great British Bake-Off. I just love it.

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

I think if you’re starting out cooking you should definitely check out The Kitchn. They just have so many great tips on how to improve your cooking. Those articles are really short so you can digest it very easily. Or Serious Eats, they do a lot of cooking tips kind of posts. So I would definitely check out those two websites.

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

The accounts that make me really happy are actually non-food related if that’s okay. I like to get visual inspiration from sources outside of food. So there are definitely several Instagram accounts that I can think of, and Instagram’s actually my favorite out of all the different social media channels.

One of them is this guy named Sam Larson. He does a lot of sketches and they’re absolutely gorgeous. Sometimes he draws really tiny animals that are about the size of a penny, a U.S. penny. And so he takes a photo of the penny and the drawing just so you know how big it is.

It’s amazing. Definitely check him out. And I also like to follow DIY bloggers on Instagram, too because they’re all so colorful and it makes me really happy when I see color. I try to incorporate that on my blog, too. Oh Happy Day is a good one, The Crafted Life. They’re always very colorful so those are my favorite. They make me happy.

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

This is actually a really cool gadget that I don’t really use all the time because it’s a seasonal thing. But I have a cherry pitter. It’s one of those things where you stick the cherry and then you clamp it. It’s so much fun and I love it. I now bake a lot of cherry things in the summer time because of that thing because I hate pitting cherries with a knife and then you make such a huge mess. But with the cherry pitter you just do it inside a bowl or over the sink and you’re done. One of the best tools ever invented.

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

Fresh mint. I think it’s because when I was a kid I ate a lot of mint, artificial mint-flavored things like mint-chip ice cream or chewing gum. I had a perception of what mint should taste like and then when I tried fresh mint for the first time it was at a Vietnamese restaurant and we had Pho and on the side they always give you some fresh herbs to put into your soup. I remember thinking, “What the heck is this? It’s so disgusting.” But over the years I’ve started incorporating it in water. So I would have cucumbers, strawberries, and some fresh mint in there, and that’s how I reintroduced mint into my palate and I really like adding it to my cooking now.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Definitely anything by America’s Test Kitchen because there’s just a lot of cooking tips. I have their cooking school book. I flip through it all the time when I have some cooking questions. One book I really like is, Nom Nom Paleo. I’m not a strict paleo-eater but I think that Michelle Tam has very creative ways of using ingredients to reduce the amount of sugar intake. She has this cherry barbecue sauce in there. I frequently flip through it all the time to see if, “Oh, is there another creative way for me to use ingredients that’s unexpected, that doesn’t require adding sugar or anything like that?” And, Joy of Cooking, just classic American recipes that I need to flip through.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Going back to Ratatouille because I know it’s a cooking movie, if I heard the soundtrack, I would totally be all up for cooking. It just sets the mood but has a French restaurant vibe to the whole soundtrack.

On Keeping Posted with Lisa:

I’d say Instagram or Facebook would be the best. I post on there the most frequently so I would definitely check Healthy Nibbles and Bits for both of them.

072: Betty Liu: An Introduction to Chinese Cuisine

August 31, 2015 by Gabriel 4 Comments

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BettySLiu.com

A wedding photographer with her husband, Alex, by day, Betty shares recipes influenced by her Chinese heritage and her parents. She grew up in a home where white rice was a staple and comfort food was soup noodles, wontons or a fatty pork belly. Betty strongly believes that traditional Asian ingredients have a place in the modern culinary world.

I am so delighted to have Betty Liu of BettySLiu.com here on the show today.

On Shanghai Cuisine:

I think it’s really hard to describe what Shanghai cuisine is. It’s such a melting pot of a city, and there’s just so much movement among the regions of China. So for example, you know Shanghai shao mai? It’s kind of an open faced dumpling, and it’s a very common back of the street food in Shanghai. But the origins of the open faced dumpling actually came from the Canton region and that’s what a lot of people actually know it as, as what they eat in dim sum, so like, shu mai filled with pork and shrimp. But somehow that migrated over to Shanghai and they completely changed it and they filled it with sticky rice, some mushrooms and some pork.

So the way I knew shao mai was the way my mom made it, which was the Shanghai version. So I don’t know if I’d call it originated from Shanghai, but it’s definitely borrowed influences from other regions as well.

I don’t know if I can really describe it in one sentence, but it is very similar to the cuisines of the Jiangsu province and the Zhejiang province. For example, I can say definitively that it’s very, very different from Sichuan cuisine or Hunan cuisine, which is very spicy and oily.

On a Dish that Brings Her Memories:

It’s something called Zongzi, so specifically Ro Zongzi. It’s basically savory sticky rice and braised pork wrapped in a bamboo leaf and it’s steamed. And it’s traditionally eaten during Dragon Boat Festival. My mom would always make it, and we would have it for breakfast and we would have it year-round. So that’s definitely something that I look forward to.

There are so many different versions. Like, I think the Taiwan version has peanuts and I know there’s a Cantonese version. I think it has Chinese sausage, but I don’t want to claim anything. But there’s a sweet version that is sticky rice as well, but with red bean paste. I’m personally not really a fan of the sweet Zongzi, but I know it exists.

On Asian Food Becoming More Refined (in the West):

I think people are becoming fed up with their food being misrepresented. And I think there’s a huge movement towards actually learning authentic cuisine and interpreting it in different ways. So I see a lot of more authentic cuisine restaurants popping up, but also a lot of great Asian fusion, and it’s really fascinating. There’s one restaurant nearby, you know Myers and Chang? It’s in Boston and they do a lot of fusion and it’s really amazing. I think it stays true to authentic cuisine but interpreting it in different ways.

I don’t want to claim to be an expert on authentic Chinese cuisine. Basically, home-style Chinese cooking, that’s what I consider authentic and I think you can find that out in the restaurants these days. Just avoid Panda Express or anything that’s obviously westernized. And my perception of authentic Chinese food hasn’t really changed. I still consider home-style Chinese food pretty authentic.

On Ingredients in a Chinese Pantry:

Because there are so many different dishes and variations in China, I wouldn’t say there’s something that you can really put together and just make a Chinese dish. But I can tell you what I always have stocked in my pantry. I always have two types of soy sauce. I have cooking wine, usually black vinegar, and I always have fresh ginger and fresh scallions in my fridge and of course, always white rice.

I guess you could call it, dark soy sauce and there’s also light soy sauce. So they’re different and you can use it in different ways. From what I understand, dark soy sauce, you can really get a lot of color from it but actually the light soy sauce has more of the flavoring.

On Simple Chinese Dish for Beginners:

I think scallion pancakes. It’s not that difficult. It’s just scallions and flour and salt and sesame oil. But it’s really easy and it’s very popular.

I also put a layer of egg on it, so people can choose to omit that if they want because that’s an extra step, but it is on my blog, if anyone’s interested.

On Some Good Resources for Learning More About Chinese Cuisine:

There are some really great food bloggers out there that I think you can really learn a lot about Chinese cuisine from. So there’s Lady and Pups by Mandy, and she has some really great recipes. And The Woks of Life is another great blog. It’s a whole family blogging about Chinese food and it’s a really great resource.

On Her Blog:

When I first started my blog, it wasn’t actually meant to be a food blog. It was more for myself. Everything was private. I just wanted to have a place where I could keep track of my cooking, specifically I wanted to learn my mom’s recipes. And the way she taught me, it wasn’t a recipe at all. It was just like, “Put a little bit of salt here, pour some cooking wine. Cook it until it feels right.” So I would describe it as very instinctive. But, as a novice cook, I didn’t have that instinct yet. So I did a lot of experimentation with proportions and how to actually make the dish. And then since I’m a photographer, taking photos of the steps and product just became a natural second step. And I discovered that I really enjoyed it and I just continued.

My husband really encouraged me. He thought that people would really want to learn, especially authentic Chinese cuisine. And my friends also started asking me for my recipes because I would use them a lot as my guinea pigs to see if my dish was good.

They really thought that people would be interested in that. I mean it was a pretty big step. I think I’m a pretty private person, but I’m having a lot of fun with it and it’s really allowed me to make a lot of connections and friends that I wouldn’t otherwise have known.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Actually, none.

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

I guess one that I really resonate with is Bread and Barrow. She’s really great. I know her personally and her posts are always super insightful, very thorough, very detail oriented, and she focuses on New England cuisine. Now that I live in Boston, that’s particularly interesting to me because I don’t think I knew much about New England cuisine except for New England clam chowder.

And then Nik from A Brown Table. I just really admire his photography and how he stays true to his own style. And his recipes are just amazing too, so that’s one. And I guess I would say Hummingbird High. That blog actually taught me a lot of what I know about baking. Her recipes, she always has these notes on how to make the recipe and baking tips. You can learn a lot about baking from that.

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

I really love Cynthia from Two Red Bowls. Her photos are always beautifully styled and she has really great sounding recipes. Again, Lady and Pups, her photos are just stunning. And I guess there’s also Beth from Local Milk. Everything she posts is just a beautiful vignette and I love that glimpse into what she’s doing. And the last one, I guess, is Feed Feed. It’s a community, and I love that it’s community-based, and I think there’s a lot of opportunity to discover other food bloggers out there.

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

I recently got a fermentation crock and that just opened the whole world of fermentation up to me. And I’m really excited to use it. I just made kimchi.

I didn’t even know that you could make kimchi at home so easily. So, I’m really excited to do future fermentation projects.

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

Ginger. I used to hate it. I would always fish it out of any dish. My mom used to force us to drink hot brewed ginger tea when we were sick and I just hated it. It was the worst medicine I could ever have. I preferred cough syrup to ginger tea. But you know, I think once I started cooking, I started to really appreciate what ginger can bring to dishes, and I actually really love ginger tea now. I love the effect that it has on my body. It really warms you up immediately.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

There’s one book that I’m reading right now. I don’t know if it is counted as a cookbook, it’s called On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee. And it basically goes over the science behind food, and it’s really fascinating because there’s just so much about food that I didn’t know before. I think it might make me a better cook if I actually understand why things work, like how does fermentation work?

So another one, I just got a book, it’s called A Boat, A Walrus and a Whale, and it’s just beautifully written. It’s very coastal.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Anything by the Beatles, and there’s an album called Anchor by Mindy Gledhill that is all very cheerful and makes me want to cook as well.

On Keeping Posted with Betty:

Probably Instagram.

014: Karen Chan: Tasty Global Cuisines for Eaters Wanting To Try New Flavours

March 18, 2015 by Gabriel 2 Comments

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HonestlyYUM

Karen has been globetrotting the world and documenting her food adventures since 2009, and today she’s the food editor and co-founder of HonestlyYum, where she helps to create an experience that inspires readers to try seasonal recipes, delightful drinks, culinary adventures, and festive DIYs.

I am so pumped to have Karen Chan of Honestly Yum here on the show today.

On What First Drew Her To Start a Blog:

My first blog was Globetrotter Diaries and to be honest, it was really just one day sitting around and kind of thinking I need a creative outlet. I love food. I love travel. I love food culture and I love exploring other peoples’ foods so it really just came out of, “Well, this is a creative outlet and so let me just start a blog for fun,” basically exploring different cultures and different foods.

On Her Global Curiosity Around Food:

I’m Chinese and so I grew up eating all kinds of food. I think at a young age my parents really prepped my palate for different flavors and different types of cuisines. I grew up in LA so it’s just a melting pot of all kinds of ethnic foods.

Anything you want you can get it, so obviously really great Chinese food, Japanese food, Korean food, even Pakistani food. One of my favorite restaurants is a Pakistani restaurant. So I’ve always, always had this love of just exploring different types of cuisines.

Not only that but I’ve also been lucky enough to travel a lot, so even just the traveling, like nearly half my plan of traveling is always, “What am I going to eat there?” So that definitely shaped my curiosity for that.

Mexico and Singapore – two very different places, but if I had to pick one I might say Mexico and Oaxaca in particular. Oaxacan cuisine because that was just… I think if you were a foodie it is the ultimate. Getting to explore all the markets and there are so many interesting ingredients, but that is the ultimate for me. My culinary heart lives in Mexico.

I live in California and so naturally there’s a big Mexican cuisine influence in California. I’ve gone myself to Mexico many times and I’m just such a fan of the culture.

On Starting HonestlyYUM:

The reason I ended up stopping Globetrotter Diaries is because I went back to school. I went to Graduate School. I went to Law School actually, and so when I had started Globetrotter Diaries, I was already on that process to going back to school. It was really for fun for me and I just knew I wouldn’t be able to have the time to keep up with it.

So once I was in school, kind of doing that, my sister, she runs HonestlyWTF, which is a fashion and lifestyle blog and she said, “You know, we really want to add a new dimension to the HonestlyWTF family. We really want to do food and entertaining and cocktails and you’ve done Globetrotter Diaries, and I really want you to come on board.” I thought it’s a lot more feasible given my busy schedule at school because I have two other people I get to work with.

It’s not all resting on my shoulders. So I thought, yeah, this is something I can do with other people who are super talented and super driven. So that’s kind of what made me do the switch. It was not planned, I guess, but it was just an opportunity that I couldn’t say no to.

On Creating an Experience Rather Than Only Featuring Recipes:

I would say it’s sort of all of our ideas, but probably primarily Erica because she’s just so creative when it comes to entertaining ideas. I mean all of us are entertainers. I love having friends over and so naturally you just kind of want to have an experience for your guests. I don’t really know where that comes from other than just we really love to create.

Part of it, too, is that it’s just so fun to do these tablescapes and parties. They’re faux parties because they’re only attended by us and our cameras, but it’s just so fun to kind of go over the top because there are very few times in the year where you do. It’s maybe Thanksgiving, maybe Christmas, and maybe a special occasion, but other than that you just, when you have a dinner party, you’re not going to be calling a florist.

This is a chance to just kind of go all out, over the top and have fun with it. I think Erica and I, especially, both really love that aspect of entertaining. It’s really creating an atmosphere and a theme, and what is the whole experience going to feel like, too.

On Her Passion for Food and Cooking:

It’s so funny because my mom always looks at my sister and I and laughs and thinks, “I don’t know where they get it from,” because my mom is not a cook.

I did not grow up in a household where I started cooking cinnamon rolls with my mom from a very young age. She cooked but she didn’t enjoy it. It was just sort of like I come home, I cook for my kids, done. And so she’s just like, “I don’t know where you guys get it from,” and we both are obsessed with food, we’re both obsessed with cooking.

I would say my interest peaked or just started to kind of form in college and probably in high school, cooking for myself a snack or whatever. But my aunt, my father’s sister, she is a huge foodie and she’s actually my aunt who is in Singapore.

That’s probably why I love Singaporean food so much. She would take me to all the hawker stalls and try everything and it’s just so good. But she is a huge foodie and so I think she helped inspire me. She’s a great cook so she would always be the one, when I was younger, to kind of be like, “Oh, here’s your recipe. Try it.” I think it’s strange. Maybe it skipped a generation. I don’t know.

She’s always been on the other side of the globe but she follows the blog and obviously sees. We see what we cook in our respective countries over Facebook and social media and emails and stuff.

On Expanding a Non-Adventurous Eater’s Food Horizons Via a New Cuisine:

I would say Vietnamese food. I think it still starts to incorporate some interesting flavors that you might not expect like, for example, lemongrass or fish sauce, which of course, if you just smell it you’re just like, “Whoah.” It’s kind of repulsive smelling but it adds a subtle flavor that when people are eating it in food, they wouldn’t be like, “Oh, there’s fish sauce in here,” and so that might help them think, “Well, if I want to make this at home, I could actually use this ingredient that I normally would never touch.”

I just think generally the flavors in Vietnamese food are very clean, light. There’s nothing incredibly aggressive about it but it’s so satisfying and it just hits a spot. I’m like a huge fan of Vietnamese, huge, huge, huge.

And even the basil’s different. I’m sure a lot of people are used to the sweet Italian basil versus the Thai basil, which has a very different flavor.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I actually watch Top Chef a lot. That’s one of my favorites.

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

One of my favorites is, I would say lately because of the New Year and because we’re trying to be healthy, it would be Green Kitchen Stories. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of it but their photography is just gorgeous and such wholesome healthy cooking.

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

I actually have recently discovered that all of the U.S. National Parks have their own Instagram accounts, for example, Yellowstone National Park.

It makes me so happy because it is, like the photography is just gorgeous, and they really post quite often and they’ll post these beautiful photos of the landscape and the Grand Teton Mountains and animals. I didn’t know that the U.S. Government was doing this and I just discovered a slew of Instagram accounts and I just follow them all.

When I’m sitting at my desk in the office and I’m just looking at how gorgeous some of these places are, it helps me escape and it just makes me very happy.

What is something all home cooks should have in their pantry?

Okay, a good, good flake sea salt like Maldon.

I would say Maldon sea salt because I use that for everything. It makes such a huge, huge difference in your cooking. I know it sounds kind of strange like salt is salt. I have kosher salt and I use that, for example, if you’re salting a pot of pasta water. I’m not going to use a big handful of Maldon salt in it, but it really does change subtly the flavor of your cooking. I would recommend that for everyone to get.

Name one ingredient you cannot live without?

This is hard. One ingredient, I would say eggs, couldn’t live without eggs. I love eggs.

I eat, sometimes, eggs for dinner. That’s how much I love them. They’re amazing in every form.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I would say anything by Nigel Slater because I just love his recipes. I mean, Jamie Oliver in the same kind of thread is like, they’re not precise, and with cooking especially, I mean with baking it’s a different story. But with cooking I think not having to literally measure out tablespoons of certain things, I think for beginners, yes, it’s probably necessary at that point, but being able to not be confined by those restrictions or those directions is good.

I know Jamie Oliver does like a glug of this and a dash of that and same with Nigel Slater. It’s sort of very loosely-based recipes. I think that’s a great way to start developing your own cooking skills because it helps you think outside the box. Like, “Okay, I’m going to rely on my own tasting.”

And cooking is so much about tasting as you go and really seeing what works and what doesn’t and experimenting. That helps you develop your own talent to be able to rely on your own judgment when it comes to measuring things, and how much to put of this, and how much to put of that, and why did we add this, and what does this contribute. I just really love Nigel Slater cookbooks.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I would say the band, Alabama Shakes, makes me want to cook because they are just so upbeat and live. I saw them live and I love them. It’s really fun music and that makes me want to cook because I just want to have fun.

Keep Posted on Karen:

Instagram and Pinterest (and HonestlyYUM.com).