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!