Episodes
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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!).
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There’s no recipe on this episode, instead we talk about a whole dang cookbook! We could not be more thrilled to have guest Kristina Cho, James Beard Award winner, creator of EatChoFood, author of a New York Times Top 10 Best Cookbooks of 2022 Mooncakes and Milk Bread and forthcoming cookbook Chinese Enough!
We talk with Kristina about how Chinese Enough came to be, some of her favorite recipes (in the moment) from the book, and what it means to be Chinese enough. She also talks about growing up in a restaurant family, the best non-dinner party dinner parties, and how her Midwestern upbringing manifests now in her California life.
Plus we talk about the enduring importance of fresh fruit for dessert, weirdly specific (and false!) book reviews, and of course, Costco. Freesia gushes the whole time.
Chinese Enough is available for pre-order wherever you get your books. Freesia insists you go order it now so you can hug it later.
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Missing episodes?
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We’re back! (Whoops, life!) On this episode we get a little San Francisco-y with native San Franciscan Alisa Wong and her dad’s tomato beef over rice. We talk about the impalpable specificity of being an ABC San Franciscan and try as we might, we never land on what exactly makes us feel that way. (We’re open to your thoughts on that, friends!)
Given the saucy nature of tomato beef, we of course talk about being Sauce On Rice Kids, and ponder the generational nature of the sauce rice preference. Will we age out of this some day???
Plus Alisa shares her all-time fave Disney wink to the culture and that one time she got in an altercation that started with cutting a line and ended with not being Chinese enough. Yeah, stuff goes down in these Disneylands apparently.
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On this episode it’s another blast from high school past with our first Thai guest Nina Meechoonuk, talking about her childhood fave, tod mun pla, aka Thai fishcake. For Nina, this one has had staying power into adulthood and even into her kid’s Thai food rotation.
While Freesia and Nina have been friends since high school, they never really talked about Nina’s experience of being Thai–until now! Hear what it was like for Nina to grow up Thai but without a large Thai community to learn from, and what that means for feeling Thai enough, even as an adult.
Plus we talk about high school lunches, Thai spicy vs other types of spicy (lookin at you wasabi and Indian food) and we dream up the grandparent cooking show.
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On this episode we’re chatting with Sam Lugtu, sister of past guest Nicole Lugtu, about her favorite childhood dish, nilaga. We talk about nilaga as a weekly meal vs a special occasion meal, never ordering the things that mean the most to you in restaurants, and the must-order restaurant dishes that are the barometer for everything else.
Plus cooking this Filipino stew for a very French family, when your oldest daughter syndrome plays out in your takeout, and we start a support group for people whose childhood restaurants have closed.
We know it’s hot basically everywhere so save this one for those chilly fall nights. Unless you live in the southern hemisphere, then this one’s for you right now! Check our website for the recipe.
Leave us a review and rating! We’ve still got a couple of gift boxes for some people who leave us a review and one could be yours! DM or email us a screenshot of the review just so we know.
And if you’ve had nilaga, let us know what yours was like. And was it a special occasion meal or an anytime meal?
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Whoops! We were away too long. But we’re back and we love this one! We’re joined by return guest Jin Yoo-Kim talking about miyeokguk aka seaweed soup aka birthday soup. Since miyeokguk is a postpartum dish as well as an everyday dish, in this episode we dive deep into its role before and after baby arrives. We talk about nourishing mom and the ripple effects to the rest of the family, postpartum as a first-time parent vs already having other kids, and the hidden time-costs of self-care and exercise (spoiler, it’s showering!)
Plus we talk about grandmothers competing to be best grandmother, we have a first-for-this-show-soft launch, and we dream up a couple of postpartum meal services along the way.
There’s still time to leave us a review on your platform of choice for a chance to win a box of some our fave Asian food brands and cute things. Think fancy instant noodles, sweet keychains, and super cute stickers, among other things.
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Happy AANHPI Heritage Month and Happy Anniversary to us! We can’t believe it’s been a whole year of doing this show. In this guestless episode, we sit down for our annual performance review and talk about what it’s been like this year and what we hope for in the future. Turns out we want to hear more from you! Plus we soft launch our Buy Me A Coffee and some probable forthcoming WQC stickers.
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Hold on to your butts! Your pork butts that is. This episode, guest Brian Tom brings us his family’s recipe for Kalua Pig and we’re very excited about it. For Brian’s family, this seemingly easy, low maintenance recipe became a family affair. We talk about roles in the kitchen, letting kids be leaders of their domain, and connections to Hawaii but from far away Massachusetts.
We talk about making art vs being an artist, reassessing identities in new spaces and new environments, and the generational divide between recent children’s literature on diversity acceptance and Tikki Tikki Tembo–and of course a mention of the incomparable Sabrina Wu.
Plus, Brian gets an award for being a certain kind of milestone guest and we get another new perspective on leftovers.
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It’s finally happened!! This episode we have our first dessert! On this one we’re joined by Lorraine Esturas-Pierson as she talks about her favorite childhood dessert, halo-halo, a Filipino dish that means mix mix. We talk about why halo-halo might be the most equitable and inclusive of all group desserts and how that was a huge benefit growing up in a LARGE household.
We talk about the inevitability of too much food at parties, the clean plate club, the lasting trauma of snow peas, and the power of cousins in numbers.
Plus, what makes something fancy, and teaching kids to cook for themselves, or better yet, you!
No recipe for this one. Just make your way to a Seafood City, Manila Market, or something similar and pick out a slew of jellys and beans of your choice, to go alongside your shave ice, vanilla ice cream and condensed milk. Lorraine is partial to agar agar and jackfruit.
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We’ve talked a lot about Chinese restaurants in past episodes. On this one we’re getting a look into the kitchen from our guest and former restaurant kid Julia Louie. We hear what it’s like to grow up in a Chinese restaurant, the privileges and obligations of the owner’s kid, and code/mode-switching between family work life and outside life.
We talk about Americanized Chinese food and try to figure out what the dividing line is between Americanized and not, how to fake Chinese “enoughness” when you don’t speak the language, and the foibles of being first a design student and then a real life design professional in a place where design is not a high priority. Plus sleeping at the restaurant in a snowstorm and the betrayal of Tall Guy!
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This episode we’re joined by Vincent Beck, Bay Area creative and street photographer, and it is eggs-cellent! Fluffy eggs-cellent to be exact! He shares his mom’s recipe for iritamago, a sweet and fluffy egg dish served over rice.
We talk about growing up a bi-racial military kid, hometown vs home, and making up for lost time with culture and connection. Plus a few potentially hot takes on Japantown and the gimmickiness–or not– of viral food trends in Japan (looking at you Totoro cream puffs!)
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Valentine’s Day might be behind us but we’re here telling the love story between our guest Nicole Lugtu and her fave dish tinola. Or maybe more accurately, the love between Nicole and chicken. Listen in as Nicole and Sam talk about their shared love of chicken and the myriad ways that manifests in life: as a personality trait, red flags and relationship dealbreakers, familial dividing lines.
We talk a lot about eating out: as a family activity, being equally important to cooking, and even long-held go-to Chinese restaurant orders (naturally, crispy chicken was an all around favorite and on all of our menus!)Be sure to have a snack on hand when Nicole talks about her family recipe project and Lola Baker’s cooking school and cake recipes. Plus food as a shortcut to identity and connection, and a hyper local review of some fave chicken spots in San Francisco.
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We’re baaaack!! Wooo! We did not mean to be away for so long but cold and flu season absolutely wrecked all of December. But we’re back with a follow up to our SPAM episode and we’re joined by special guest Jaime Sunwoo, creator of Specially Processed American Me.
In this special second edition spam-isode, we talk about Jaime’s performance film, the signature dishes of what she calls the Spam Diaspora, and we dig into the Hormel Girls. Plus food as an entry point to unpacking family history, and the adorable way that Jaime’s mom served (serves??) spam fried rice.
Links of interest as discussed on the show:
The Kitchen Studio: Culinary Creations by ArtistsLisa Friedman - Fake Food Factory -
We’re forever celebrating the everyday dishes, but we just couldn’t help ourselves getting in on a little holiday cheer! This episode we’re joined by Ken Cho, bringing us his favorite holiday dish, Mom’s Thanksgiving Stuffing. We talk about growing up “All-American” in the 80s, canned soups on everything, and raising hapa kids.
We dig into what it’s like to go from shame and disgust of Korean food to housing spicy soondubu and banchan, “cool Asians,” and the great Asian unifier: SPAM (we seriously can’t get enough of it on this show). Plus a new merch idea and gamifying the podcast!
You can find a recipe to Mom’s Thanksgiving Stuffing on our site and take a peek at the book Mostly Me, especially for the hapas and parents of hapas out there.
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This episode we’re joined by Neha Gautam, filmmaker, photographer, educator and writer director of Passenger Seat, bringing us paratha, or more specifically her childhood version of paneer stuffed paratha with ketchup because kid palette.
We talk about “Indian pizza” as a specific and universal tactic for feeding kids, classic 90s kid lunches (fold over sandwich bags anyone??), and roti as a symbol of oppression.
Plus we talk about what it’s like to grow up in NYC and Alaska, mix tapes and cassette technology, and cut fruit as an Asian love language.
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In this episode we’re joined by Shaun Garcia, husband, father and noodle soup connoisseur about his fave soup and classic Filipino dish, Sinigang, which doesn’t happen to have noodles, in case you’re wondering! We talk about growing up in the clean plate club, feeding a toddler what you’re eating (hopefully!), and inventing a dish in high school that was really not a unique invention in any way shape or form.
Plus, we talk about the signs of true love and we crack (part of) the code on not feeling shame or embarrassment when messing up our cultural dishes. Spoiler: it’s failure! Yikes!! Jk, we love it!
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In a slight deviation in programming, we’re sneaking in at the end of Hispanic Heritage Month with our first non-Asian guest! This episode we bring on long time friend of Freesia’s and #1 WQC super fan Nicole Fox. Despite her non-Asianness Nicole almost always finds something relatable to her own life and experiences in our episodes. Because maybe food is the great equalizer and maybe growing up not white in this pretty white society is weird, no matter what your culture.
Anyway, on this episode we talk about her dad’s weekend breakfasts of chorizo and eggs, how the loss of an elder can be felt for generations, and, surprise surprise, how cooking your own culture’s food can be super intimidating.
Plus we talk about store bought tortillas as feminist icons, how the Mission-style burrito is superior to all others, including its superior delivery technique—a hill we’re both ready to ☠️ on—and Mexican v Spanish chorizo (and an honorable mention to soyrizo 😬). Also we dunk on our high school Spanish teacher. Sorry not sorry Señor Stevens.
💛💛🦀🦀
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This is a spicy one! No really, the dish is spicy. On this episode we talk to Christian Wu about his mom’s Mapo Tofu, something so relatable, and so beloved by Christian, and honestly his mom’s version sounds way better than ours.
Join us as we talk about being a third culture kid–growing up in both Tijuana and San Diego– growing up in a restaurant, and what parents can take away from hyper independent kids to coerce compliance. Plus we talk about cooking with parents, deciphering a recipe through language barriers, and the loving savagery of food-based friendships.
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For this momentous 10th episode, we’re putting recipes aside to talk about the great Asian and Asian American uniter, SPAM! Our guests are writer Margot Seeto and filmmaker Jin Yoo-Kim, creators of SPAMFIGHT!, a short film inspired by a love of Spam. We talk about our childhood memories of Spam and the creative ways we’re eating it today. We also talk about the ways die hard Spam fans celebrate this icon, and make up a few of our own that we’d like to see and eat.
Plus we talk about the sometimes complicated role of Spam in shaping identity, and some of the artists centering SPAM in their work. Hilariously terrible bonus, Jin shares her worst Spam memory and we all hate it but man do we get it.
Links to artists and organizations mentions in the show:
A-Doc - Asian American Documentary NetworkWatch SPAMFIGHT! by Jin Yoo-Kim on YouTubeRead "Shelter-in-Place Chronicles: Spam in the Time of Corona" by Margot SeetoSpecially Processed American Me by Jaime SunwooKoreangry by Eunsoo JungDawn Wing - Title DesignerLinks to support the ongoing recovery efforts caused by the devastating fires in Maui:
Chef Hui & The Hawai‘i Community Foundation - Funds raised for Chef Hui Maui Hospitality Relief will go directly to support Maui restaurants, hospitality workers and their families who have been displaced due to the fires. Funds will be distributed directly to restaurants and their employees based on needs.Dr. Julia Colangelo - Venmo for friend of the show and Lahaina resident whose family lost their home in the fire. SPAM® Brand Loves Maui Shirt - 100% of the proceeds for these t-shirts will go directly to the Aloha United Way's Maui Fire Relief Fund. -
On this episode we’ve got Haeny Yoon, host of Pop and Play podcast, bringing us her childhood dish sujebi. Was it a snack? Was it dinner? When you’re in middle school, is there a difference?? We talk about growing up with two working immigrant parents and what that meant for cooking, being simultaneously too Korean and not Korean enough, and the genetic nature of loving a soupy noodle thing. Plus we talk about making more space for Asian stories, and authenticity: what even is it anymore??
Haeny mentions a few great New York Times pieces that you might want to check out:
"Asian-Americans Need More Movies, Even Mediocre Ones" by Viet Thanh Nguyen on narrative plentitude and Crazy Rich Asians."Here's Why I Opened My Middle School Yearbook" an OpDoc by Sean Wang. - Show more
