I grew up in the city of San Diego enjoying California burritos, Vietnamese pho, carne asada fries, and of course the foods of my family which consists of Cambodian Chinese dishes sprinkled in with late night In N Out Burgers and Jack in the Box. When I went to college in LA, I re-discovered tacos (LA street tacos hit different than a SD drive thru Mexican restaurant), got introduced to Hawaiian poké, found a love for Japanese shabu shabu and Chinese hotpot, and overindulged in Korean BBQ and Taiwanese boba; I was even a barista for two boba shops (both Vietnamese-owned though).

My perspective at this point was mainly Asian food, but my stomach did not realize how many more cuisines there was to discover, eat, and obsess over. I graduated college, then moved into the city and discovered a huge love of Mediterranean food, primarily from the Armenians of Glendale and East Hollywood, and was further introduced to Filipino lechon and all things ube. Panaderias, both Mexican and Filipino, became a staple breakfast (could eat a longsilog for days), Italian food was regular on the dinner table (fueled by an amazing neighborhood osteria), and my friends and I splurged on the occasional weekdays to try the hottest new restaurants in the Arts District of DTLA. On the weekends, it was whatever French patisserie I could find, or coffee shop serving artisan espresso or matcha, and dinner was either in Koreatown or Little Tokyo. Suffice to say, I was amazed by the variety of foods that exist on this globe and became obsessed with the possibilities of fusion.

The culmination of my food experiences developed my style of cooking. I like to stick to the guidelines of what makes a dish a dish, but change up an element or two that’ll catch you by surprise. As much as I am a planner, I tend to trust my instincts more and freestyle in the moment and thankfully, more often than not, everything turns out delicious. Though as much as the act of cooking and eating is fun, I find myself more interested in the cultural impact of food and the science of it all, both social science and food chemistry. Learning about how ingredients migrate from region to region to influence the local cuisine, but also understanding how foods react on a molecular level, and why does that fermentation in bread give me slight trypophobia? I describe myself as a food researcher more than a recipe developer since my writing skills aren’t adept and my slightly neurodivergent brain is not conducive to explaining my methods; but I love deep diving into food history and hyper-fixating on whatever ingredient makes me say “I wonder where these come from.”

Now, here we are. I’ve been wanting to publish my experiments in a digital format for a long time, but like many people I couldn’t find the right motivation to consistently post on a regular schedule. Somehow this blog idea always fell through, left neglected for months until a spontaneous late night recollection that I’ve been paying for this domain and hosting service and I can’t let that money go to waste. Therefore, I’ve challenged myself to post 50 recipes and see if I can bring this blog to fruition. I gave you the whole spiel about my love for food history, but this blog will really be geared towards the straight-facts of how to do a recipe instead. When my friends ask whether I can recreate a dish made at the last dinner party, normally I say “I can’t because I don’t remember what I put in it.” Well now, hopefully, I can. Whether I get a following or not, I’m putting my stuff out there hoping that the universe will take it to anyone in need… maybe that person is myself.