This episode we’re talking to none other than chef Kathy Fang of House of Nanking and Fang Restaurant about her new cookbook House of Nanking. We were delighted to hear behind the scenes stories of this San Francisco institution, her experiences growing up in the restaurant, and dive into this cookbook that is surprisingly accessible to the home cook. We talk about Kathy’s early experiences critiquing her dishes, the signature experiences and dishes of HoN born out of necessity, and her dad’s ingenuity throughout his life. Plus we talk about all of the things that make no sense but somehow make House of Nanking the success that it has been for over 30 years.  The House of Nanking Cookbook: Family Recipes from San Francisco’s Favorite Chinese Restaurant is out everywhere Sept 30th and available for pre-order now. Trust us when we say this book is beautiful and has dishes that are shockingly simple. 

We’re talking many, many things Taiwanese food with Nancy Jeng and Felicia Liang, the author and illustrator of A Very Asian Guide to Taiwanese Food. We talk about Nancy and Felicia’s childhood embarrassment of Taiwanese food, requesting more “American” foods, and finding their way back to Taiwanese food as young adults. We talk about how their author/illustrator collaboration came to be, Nancy’s long-con to get her husband to cook Taiwanese classics, the untapped potential of Taiwan’s beaches, and the popularity of Trader Joe’s scallion pancakes. Find this wonderful beautiful book on Gloo Books or wherever you get your books, and hang out with Nancy and Felicia at their book launch event at On Waverly on Sunday, September 14. Plus themed bites by past guest Jessic Fu and (possible future guest) Henry Hsu. And if you’re looking for some recipes, find three great ones in the back of this book, including one for Nancy’s Nai Nai’s scallion pancakes. We’ll be trying these out in our house along with tea eggs.

This episode we’re talking with Karen Chan, founder of Gloo Books about not one, but two of her childhood favorites, Taiwanese tea eggs and her mom’s oxtail stew! If you’re hungry now you might want to go get a snack. We talk with Karen about the nostalgia of visiting her grandparents in Taiwan and eating tea eggs from the convenience store, her mom’s less enthusiastic approach to food, and the connective power of food and travel. We talk a lot about the many wonderful titles under Gloo Books, Karen gives us a peek inside the publishing world, and we get the inside scoop on some brand new baby books that we can all help kickstart! Plus we come up with an oyster-based business idea for her dad.  Find Gloo Book’s kickstarter for their Baby Go series, and check out all the wonderful Gloo Books titles on their website. We are serious fans of many of these and if you find yourself here, you’ll at the very least love the Very Asian Guide to.. Series.

This episode we talk with author Kaila Yu,  new book Fetishized and her classic Taiwanese comfort food, Lu Rou Fan. We’re a little light on the food this episode but spend lots of time on Kaila’s new book, the fetishization of Asian women, and stories that feel like they’re from 20 years ago but are, unfortunately, still true today.  Plus we talk about Kaila’s experience as an import model, Chinese school, and padding that college application with extracurriculars. Fetishized is out August 19 and available for pre-order whenever you get your books. It’s a great read—plus a chapter on The Joy Luck Club!

Whoops, we accidentally took a summer break. We just have so many kids and so little free time. But we’re back and we’re excited to talk with actor and marketer Sakura Nakahara about her favorite childhood dish that remains a favorite today, okonomiyaki. Not just a childhood treat, today it serves as her mother’s love language, bribe language, apology and so much more. We talk with Sakura about being the black sheep of the family for pursuing a science career, growing up with picture-perfect bento box lunches, and her eventual journey to the stage. Plus her sister’s diabolical game night and her possible sixth-sense for grapes. Listen wherever you get your podcasts and let us know if you’ve got a good spot for Okonomiyaki. As much as we aspire to be Sakura’s mom, we’re probably just ordering out for this one. But if you do want to give it a go at home, grab her mom’s recipe from our website and let us know how it turns out.

We can’t even pretend to have chill about this. On this extra special episode, we interview the namesake of our mascot and inspiration for the title of the show, Waverly herself, the legend, the icon, Tamlyn Tomita! We of course ask Tamlyn about the Joy Luck Club, what it meant 30 years ago, what it means now, and her thoughts on playing Waverly. She also talks Karate Kid II, her equally iconic role of Kumiko, and her personal ties to it as a person of Okinawan-descent. Plus she shares one of her all-time comfort foods, what it meant growing up as the daughter of an Okinawan-Filipina mom and a Japanese-American cop dad.  Listen in as we try to keep our cool and Freesia almost makes it through the whole episode without crying, almost. Huge thanks to Tamlyn for being so gracious and so generous with her time and storytelling. Truly a best quality heart.

We’re honoring AAPI month with one of our favorite local AAPI community leaders, Cynthia Huie, owner of On Waverly, an AAPI gift shop and bookstore in the heart of Chinatown. Cynthia shares her childhood fondness for shrimp chips made at home by her grandfather, her lasting love for the crunchy, salty, airy snack. Cynthia talks about representation through retail, her relationship with her grandparents and how that has led to intergenerational friendships as an adult, and how our kids get to take a lot of things for granted–and that’s a good thing! Plus creating community and bringing people back to Chinatown, super cool events series and spaces, and that one time Freesia met a Grammy winner when she was hanging out at On Waverly.

This episode we pick up the soy sauce/restaurant kid threads with guest Eddie Lo. Now a food professional himself, Eddie talks about growing up in Chinese restaurant and being raised by amazing cooks, including his grandma, who would make him Hong Shao Rou, a braised pork belly dish.  We talk about growing up in Wisconsin and Southern California eating exclusively Chinese food, having a first hamburger in college, and then never looking back on trying new foods.  Eddie shares how his full throttle into new foods led him to cooking classes, traveling for food, and eventually to the businesses he runs today teaching dumpling classes and promoting premium soy sauce Liv Cook Eat.

On this episode we’re doing something a little different. In the spirit of March Madness we present to you, March Madness of Chinese Cuisine! We partnered with our friend Curtis Chinn of the Infatuasian podcast and our friend Cynthia Huie at On Waverly to record this live, with an audience inside of On Waverly, the best AAPI gift shop and bookstore in Chinatown. This was a just for fun attempt to crown one Chinese dish winner among many excellent choices. It was all for goofs and laughs so please don’t @ us if your favorite dish didn’t make it out of the first round or didn’t make the brackets. They were near impossible choices and my personal pick didn’t make it out of round one. Anyway, we hope you enjoy this fun live episode. We’ll be back soon with regularly scheduled programming!

This episode we’re talking about everyone’s favorite cooking staple and condiment (please don’t @ us if it’s not your fave) soy sauce, with author and illustrator Laura G. Lee who has a new children’s book by the same name.  We talk with Laura about growing up in West Virginia among mostly blond-haired blue eyed children, her parents' decision not to pass along the Korean language, and her mother’s use of soy sauce in just about everything.  We of course talk about Laura’s beautiful book–painted with real soy sauce– her many visits to schools and classrooms to share the book with kids, and the emotional intelligence of kids to not yuck yums.

On this episode we are delighted to have all-around-knowledgeable-and-thoughtful-food-person, former SF Chronicle food critic, current columnist, and cookbook author Soleil Ho! They talk about the dish bahn khot, and eating it fresh off the griddle while their grandmother kept slinging it out, short order cook-style for many, many grandchildren, and why it’s so hard to find a good one outside of Vietnam. We talk about Soleil’s journey from a baby gourmand to full-blown professional gourmand, a possible time-travel moment, and braising lamb on a campus full of vegans.  Plus cookbooks that are more than instruction manuals, life after being a restaurant critic, and the pleasing excess of the Rancho Gordo Bean club. Bonus: listen for three Vietnamese restaurant recommendations! Bonus-bonus: listen until the end for our impromptu Robocop pod!! 🤖

This episode we’re joined by cookie maker extraordinaire Amy Wong of Batch 22 Bakery. Lunar New Year might be a little behind us for the year but Amy’s dish, leen goh, is so classic and so beloved we’ll talk about it any time of year. We talk about Amy’s diligent testing to turn her grandmother’s loosey-goosey recipe into a near-exact replica, her mother’s version that could feed an army, and honoring the recipe while still using an Instant Pot for a lil modern day ease. We also talk about pivoting from the perceived stability of a cushy tech marketing job to being a baker, the near-comical naming conventions—or lack thereof—of Chinese pastry, and if Amy’s dad may or may not be Garfield.  Be warned that we have a lengthy cookie discussion so maybe have a snack first or keep some cookies close by!

Our first live episode! This one is doubly special as we did our first live episode AND celebrated Lunar New Year with a panel of illustrious guests. Thank you to KALW for featuring us as part of their Bay Made series and thank you to guests Margot Seeto, Eric Ehler, and Deanna Ulrich for joining us to talk about their Lunar New Year traditions as kids and what LNY means to them as adults. Special thanks to: David Boyer David Kwan Ben Trefny Charles Lighthouse KALW Staff Outta Sight Pizza Nicole Lugtu

It’s Thanksgiving in February on this episode! We talk with author and coach Tracey Gee about turkey jook, something so beloved by her and her family, and special to our family that we couldn’t dare pass this one up, no matter the time of year. We talk about the origins of Thanksgiving turkey in Tracey’s household growing up, her very thoughtful method for making it vs our arguably slap-dash way, and come up with a hyper specific Buy Nothing group that we’re sure could be a hit. Plus we talk about Tracey’s brand new wonderful book The Magic of Knowing What you Want and we get very useful, very actionable tips on how to know what you want and what to do with that—especially if what we want is turkey jook. Come for the turkey jook, stay for the life-changing magic of Tracey’s wisdom!

Oh hey!! It’s out first live episode ever!! Come join us for a special Lunar New Year episode as part of 91.7 KALW Bay Made Showcase.We’ll be in conversation with past guests Margot Seeto and Deanna Ulrich, plus new special guest chef Eric Ehler of Outta Sight Pizza about our Lunar New Year traditions past and present. Plus special LNY-inspired pizzas by Outta Sight. And we’ll have stickers!Get your free tickets!Come for the pizza, stay for the chats!

This ain’t your mother’s bao! But it *is* Jessica’s grandmother’s bao! On this episode we talk to pastry chef Jessica Fu about her grandmother’s special bao, filled with pork, spices, and secret ingredient vermicelli. This one is so special that between the three of us, none of us have ever seen it on a menu or out in the wild! We talk about where this dish came from and whether or not Jessica’s grandmother made it up.We also talk about Jessica’s fear of cooking savory, her aversion to trying to make these bao (surprise: perfectionism!), and how being brought up by immigrant parents with high standards actually kinda makes for becoming a good pastry chef.  Plus, growing up in a tiny Northern California community surrounded by a much larger one, being exposed to a stand-mixer, and the superiority and resurgence of whipped cream cakes.  Do not listen to this one on an empty stomach or a sugar detox. You’ve been warned! Upon some digging we did also find a single similar recipe that uses beef instead of pork. Sub ingredients at will if you’re up for the challenge! And if you’re going more in the direction of Jessica’s grandmother, no ginger or cilantro!

We should really stop pretending like we don’t do holiday episodes because whoops we actually love them. We’re back with a holiday x new cookbook x baking for a cause episode with Hetal Vasavada, author of Milk and Cardamom and Desi Bakes, founder of baking pop up Milk and Cardamom, and former Master Chef contestant. What started with a pitch for butter (not that we have a problem with that! It’s butter!!) turned into a super fun conversation about growing up Indian American in New Jersey, how baking saved organic chemistry lab, and the ways in which Hetal is becoming her mother, which we’re here for! Plus munching cheese, unintended food traditions, and accidentally creating entirely too expensive kid palettes.  And of course, butter. We talk about Hetal’s partnership with Challenge Butter which has partnered with Cookies For Kids to raise funds for pediatric cancer research, a cause that’s close to Hetal and just so deeply important. Bake your family favorite holiday cookie or any other holiday cookie recipe from their site and tag @challengebutter and @Cookies4kids along with #ChallengeForACure with your cookie photo. And if the idea of baking with your littles is too much, Hetal gives us some stellar tips on how to bake together without making huge messes or being overly stressed about it.  No single recipe for this one but MANY recipes in Hetal’s gorgeous cookbooks and a recipe for some beautiful stained-glass sugar cookies on the side of special holiday edition Challenge butter. Go check them out and have your own lil bake sale, after all, it’s cookie season!

On this episode we’re talking to author Ellie Yang Camp about her new book Louder Than The Lies: Asian American Identity, Solidarity, and Self-Love, and just as importantly, we talk about soups!! Yes, not one, but two family soups: beef noodle soup made by her dad, and chicken broth made by her mom.  We talk about growing up Taiwanese American in not-so-Asian California suburbs, chasing taste memories, and passing on culture through food (our fave!) Of course we dive into Louder Than The Lies, which we can’t recommend enough. We love how it succinctly articulates so much of what we’ve been feeling about being Asian in America. Ellie reminds us that the fight for equity requires practice and stamina, and offers us a way forward, which we’ll probably need now more than ever. Plus the scurry-and-hide method of cooking, lightly dunking on Dr. Oz, and dismantling systems of oppression while being a full-time introvert parent! In true Asian parent form, we have no exact recipe, but we have it on good authority that Clarissa Wei’s recipe for beef noodle soup hits exactly right for many Taiwanese families, which you can find in her book Made in Taiwan.

On this post-election one we present our first ever disliked dish, because apparently there are no rules anymore. This was meant to be a revenge episode with Eli Beutel, but instead of raging against this German Christmas dish, stollen, they were the consummate food and alcohol historian—and still funny!  We talk about the history of this dish, why they hate it, and why it’s still important to share family recipes, even not so great ones. Plus flavor profiles as identity, accidentally becoming an expert in Hittite bee law, and a dip into tiki culture. Eli recommends their mentor Dawn Bohulano Mabalon's book Little Manila Is in the Heart: The Making of the Filipina/o American Community in Stockton, California If you're curious about stollen, Eli recommends trying it first before diving into making your own loaf. Here's a couple places you can purchase it: World Market Dresden Stollen Bakers (this year's batch is sold out but you can sign up for a reminder to buy next year's)

On this episode we’re talking to fellow podcaster Curtis Chinn, host of the InfatuAsian podcast. His podcast is dedicated to Asian American creators and the culture we all know and love, so naturally we had a lot to talk about. Curtis brings a non-recipe recipe in the form of potstickers, which for him were less family recipe and more college party trick.  We talk about being a multi-generation Chinese American and San Franciscan, and what that means for identity and the road away from and back to Chinese and Asian culture. Plus we take a quick detour into parenting around ethnicity and culture (fellow parents, listen and weigh in please!!) We also go on a mini food history journey and it’s very possible that we’ve started a new podcast (eek!).