321: Send Chinatown Love

0:29This episode is brought to you by Rezzy and American Express. season. One of my favorite cheeses to put out is Parmigiano Reggiano, a cheese that is in a class of its own. A few years ago, I was able to visit a Parmigiano Reggiano dairy outside Parma, and I have to say it was a near holy experience. I got to see the cheesemakers in action, and it was clear that there's only one way in making this amazing cheese, and it only happens in Italy. I agree. I love putting out hunks of Parmigiano Reggiano to pair with holiday cocktails or drizzled with balsamic vinegar. Add a wedge of Parmigiano Reggiano to your holiday spread and elevate your hosting experience.

1:06Look for Parmigiano Reggiano in the premium cheese case of your favorite grocery store or deli and make sure the full name is listed on the package and the unique rind dotted with the Parmigiano Reggiano name. Say it with us, Parmigiano Reggiano. Visit www.parmigianoregiano.us slash holiday for more holiday inspiration. You can check out the link in our show notes as well.

1:40We kind of wanted to, you know, like say about like making it doesn't necessarily have to mean like one thing or another. It doesn't have to mean like rampant financial success. We are just trying to say like, to build something and to, you know, support your family, like in New York City is a great success.

2:01This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbart.

2:08Today on the show, we have a great conversation with Alice Luo and Elaine Mao, two staffers at the New York City-based nonprofit Send Chinatown Love. As the name suggests, the volunteer-run organization provides financial and resource-based aid to NYC's Asian businesses. Alice and Elaine have also put out one of my absolute favorite books of the year, Made Here, Recipes and Reflections from NYC's Asian Communities. It's a super savvy book, beautifully photographed and featuring recipes from some of New York's most institutional restaurants, including Chodongol, Punjabi Deli, and Peking Duck House.

2:40And best of all, 100 % of net proceeds of this cookbook will go back to Send Chinatown Love's community-building efforts. You should really buy a copy of this book now, and I hope you enjoy this conversation.

3:00We're here with Shalita Harris, producer. Hey, what's up, Shalita? Hey, Matt. How are you today? I'm great, and we have some special guests in the studio who were introduced shortly. But you have been following Send Chinatown Love for several years, and you needed to have them in the studio and you needed our listeners to be introduced to them. And I so appreciate it because I love this new book and this organization. So will you please introduce our guests? Yeah, thanks so much, Matt. You know, I've been following the incredible works and Chinatown Love has been doing in the New York City area for the past three years now, pretty much since early on in the pandemic.

3:36And I'm thrilled to have Alice Luo and Elaine Mao with us here today to talk about it. So Alice, Elaine, this is Taste. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for having us. We're excited to be here. Great. So Alice, let's ask you first, how did you guys meet? What is your, let's go into that, Alice. How did I meet Elaine? Yeah, yeah. So I've been with Send Chinatown Love since 2020. During the pandemic days, I first joined the engineering team. And later I did people in operations. And one of the duties that I had to do with that role was to onboard some volunteers. And one of that volunteer was Elaine.

4:15And I found out that Elaine lives two blocks away from me. And we've become very close friends, not only because of proximity, but with this project that we've been working on for almost two years. Yes. And actually, it was quite a long time after we met virtually that we met in person, of course, because we met virtually, I believe, in 2020. And then it wasn't until maybe 2021 at a party at Winnie's that we first met face to face. And yeah, like Alice said, we have just become super close. And this project has been like with the two of us as well as everybody on it, like some of like our closest friends now that we get to work with.

4:59I feel like by the end of this interview, you'll probably be sick of me saying how much I love this book and how much of a joy it is to have both of you here. And, you know, I've seen the advanced copy. So I've seen so many of the recipes and the photography and the art. And I've also seen so much of the wonderful press. You are on Bon Appetit and Vogue's Best Fall Cookbooks list, which is just such a feat for an indie. So it really is just great to be talking to you today. But before we get into the cookbook, I would love to ask you, where should we be eating in Chinatown right now? Yeah, so Elaine and I, we both live in the Fujini side of Chinatown near the Lower East Side.

5:41So some of our favorite restaurants will be located on East Broadway, which is the main archery of that part of Chinatown. For me, I like to bring our friends to Kiku Cafe. It's a no-frills restaurant where they make the dumplings on the spot and they cook it for you. And very delicious. Serves the community. A lot of people from family, kids, some of the city office workers go there. Another place I really like that's more popular and in the main part of Chinatown would be Uncle Lou's. They serve a lot of classic Cantonese cuisine. My family is Cantonese. So I don't really have that much Cantonese food that often because my family's back in Australia.

6:26So this actually reminds me of home. And one of the things I really love about Uncle Lou's is their steamed fish that comes with the scallions and ginger and also the complimentary dessert at the end. That's always the best. And how about yourself, Elaine? Yes. So Alice mentions that we both live on or near East Broadway because independently we both chose East Broadway businesses as sort of like our first go-tos. So mine is there is this fantastic rice noodle cart that parks on the corner of East Broadway and Rutgers right by the East Broadway F. And she sells rice rolls and congee, which is my favorite.

7:07And she kind of recognizes me at this point as that girl that's always buying congee. And if she's sold out, she'll just like motion me away in a very kind way, but just kind of like a sorry, not today. And she does always sell out by around noon. So you're allowed to get there early. And then aside from that, because my family comes from the northern part of China. So for a lot of like regional Chinese cuisines, the go to neighborhood is really flushing. So, like, a couple months ago, my parents were visiting New York for the first time since, like, the 90s. And my mom had, like, this huge list of places that she wanted to go in Flushing.

7:48And then we got there, and she had, like, five places that she wanted to go. And we only managed to get to maybe, like, three of them before we were all just, like, too stuffed. But obviously, like, New World Mall in the basement is always a really exciting adventure, just, like, walking around and buying whatever looks good. What did your mom think about New York after not having visited it since the 90s? That is a great, that's amazing. That's amazing. Yeah, I think I was really nervous about that trip because my mom hates New York. Or that's what she always said. Like, they live... Those Californians.

8:26Yeah. Yeah, I mean, they moved to New Jersey when they first came to the United States and they would come to New York. And I just think they had like a really bad time of it back then because it used to be really different. And they've like gotten their car broken into and like gotten their thing stolen. And just, you know, it used to be very different. And we moved out to California, which is where I mostly grew up. And yeah, it's, you know, but then they came and they just like they loved it. Like they were so excited. I booked them a hotel like outside of Manhattan's Chinatown. And my mom, like she got a haircut.

9:00She got her eyebrows done. And she like looked up all of these places that she wanted to go. We went to like six restaurants in Flushing in the course of like a day. We brought extras to take home. Like it was, yeah, they loved it. And it seems like this trip was maybe a little more meticulously planned. Like I know when I have someone visiting and I have a point of view on a place or I'm trying to convince you on a city that I like, I sort of have a list like we need to hit all of these places. Were there top spots that you needed to make sure that your parents went as you were trying to change their opinion of New York in 2023?

9:38Definitely. I was working on the sort of like I was working on the list for weeks and I was like crowdsourcing recommendations from friends and trying to think like, oh, will they like this? Will they not? There were things that like I thought would definitely impress them. You know, we walked along the waterfront. We went up to, like, the new Hudson Yards area, which is quite impressive. And, you know, I think very modern. Like, a lot of Asian tourists like it because it looks like the very modern parts of Asia with, like, all of the really crazy architecture and stuff. I mean, Flushing was a big one just because I think even in, like, this is something that we'll get into in the cookbook as well.

10:20But like even in California, we live in like the Bay Area, which has a lot of really great Asian food, but you can't get the same kinds of like regional cuisines that you can get in New York. So they were just really excited to like get a taste of some things that they haven't had like for potentially like years or decades. And so, Alice and Elaine, you both touched on that you're both originally from other places, Australia and California, respectively. So what exactly is your background outside of the work you do for Send Chinatown Love? Yeah, so my background is in data and economics. I was a data analyst in the Statistical Bureau back in Australia.

11:06And in the U.S., I've done more engineering work as well as some freelance work here and there in the creative and entertainment industry. As of recently, I was in the hospitality industry and I feel that that has allowed me to get a greater understanding of the restaurants and small businesses and seeing those challenges firsthand. And as for me, yeah, as I mentioned, I mostly grew up in California. And then I do have a like a background in journalism and storytelling. It's something I started in high school and then did throughout college. And then I went to grad school, which is actually when I first moved to New York to go to grad school for journalism.

11:55And I was, yeah, after that, I moved back out to San Francisco and I ended up working in also as like in software engineering. And one of my other long term passions besides like storytelling is music. So I've been working in music recommendation algorithms for the last like probably seven years or so. Wait, you're the person who gets like XTC onto my playlist. Yes. You're welcome if you like it. Yes. Thank you. I love it. Amazing. What a cool job. Let's talk about March 2020. What were you observing in your community when you came together and decided Send Chinatown Love needed to happen? Yeah.

12:47So this actually started, well, that was a long time ago, right? March 2023 years ago. So what we were noticing in the Asian communities, even one month before March 2020, so in February, that there were a lot of businesses and restaurants in Chinatown that were already shutting down. Or if you would go to their storefront, it would be posters of them shutting down because of hardships. and Send Chinatown Loves founder Justin McKibben was skateboarding from his office in Soho to his Chinatown apartment. He wanted to pick up some dumplings from his favorite place, which is the now closed iconic spot, 88 Lanzau, and that's where he noticed that they were closed down.

13:34And through these observations and him being raised in a family where it was all about love, compassion, and food, He had a great conversation with his uncle who gave him the advice of be a lifter than a leaner. And from that advice, he made a call to action on his Instagram where asking, hey, there is some what can we do for these businesses in Chinatown or in Asian communities? There is a disproportionate impact on these communities because of COVID. It could be anti-Asian sentiment, a lack of technological or language skills. What can we do? And from that Instagram post, I garnered so many responses and they ended up creating an organization, being sent Chinatown Love, where they would come up with creative ways to firstly fundraise for these businesses that were experiencing rent increases or lost revenue and trying to understand our merchants and what is the best way that they can support them.

14:53So the Gifted Meal program was conceived in May 2020, and that was to address two groups. One was to bring business and support to these small mom and pop shops and restaurants. And a lot of the initial things that we did was the fundraising cash relief. But a lot of these small businesses didn't want to take the money. They'd rather provide their services. So this was a perfect solution where we can pay them to provide those meals. And that impacts another group, which is underserved, food insecure, low income community members. So we pay our merchants and our restaurants to prepare these meals or grocery items or other resources.

15:42And we partner with some of our distributors who are community organizations, nonprofits, food pantries. And we work with them very closely. they are so integral to our gift-a-meal program. And we identify, well, what are our distributors looking for? What are their needs? What are their demographics? And then we match them with our merchants on multiple factors, such as geographical proximity, dietary requirements, or even prioritizing merchants who may need a boost in revenue. And then those meals and items get distributed to those communities. So we've been serving Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens.

16:26And this year, well, since 2020, we have distributed over 60 ,000 meals and items. And that's been around circling over half a million dollars back into Asian businesses. That's amazing. Elaine, let me ask you the significance of the title made here. I like to get a sense of how the organization decided to write a cookbook, which, again, I echo Shalia. It is a beautiful book, and I am buying one when I leave here. It's amazing. It's really, really terrific. So what does Made Here mean to you? Yeah, that's a great question. And I think first, maybe I can explain sort of like how we came to wanting to write this cookbook and sort of like how that fits in with our other work.

17:20So like, as Alice mentioned, we do a lot of fundraising and we have our Gift a Meal GAM program. But I think one thing as we are now, I guess, almost four years from the founding of Send Chinatown Love is pivot into, I mean, we're going to like sustain these efforts, but still like think more on not only the present, but also securing the future of these communities. And how can we kind of build something that has like, I guess, a lasting legacy and also like furthers our mission of helping our businesses connect to the community. so going into that like this cookbook was one thing that was I guess came out of like a lot of like conversations and it sort of had like a previous like I guess a predecessor in our zine which was called send chinatown love letters um and then a lot of people were saying like oh we wish there were more recipes than this so that was really like where that idea came about and then the cookbook we knew we wanted to have like a really big like storytelling component and also talk about not just Chinatowns I mean I do want to point out like even though our name is in Chinatown Love a lot of the businesses we work with are not technically in the bounds of Chinatown and with this book we really wanted to expand even further and pull in businesses from cuisines that we hadn't previously worked with and just really you know paint as I guess vibrant a picture as we could of just the diversity and how just how incredible the New York City Asian food scene is so to now answer your question the title made here actually we for the first like year and a half of the project we could not come up with a name for the cookbook and you know for so long we were just calling it the sunshine town love cookbook but we knew we were calling it cookbook 2022 and then cookbook 2023 as cookbook deadlines go yeah yeah that's true all of our early project documents are named like that but we knew we didn't want to just call it the sunshine town love cookbook because we really wanted a name that encompassed a lot of like the different cuisines and the different neighborhoods that we have in our book.

19:57And we felt that, you know, we needed something that was just like really inclusive. And so we spent months with our team and with like the Senchant Home Love organization trying to land on the perfect name. We had a voting process. We had name submissions. We had in-person title workshopping sessions. And ultimately, I guess, if I can quote the foreword of the book, so, quote, it's about more than just making food, it's about making a home, making a life, and making it in New York City. And so the genesis of this title initially is, I think, hearing that Jay-Z and Alicia Keys song, Empire State of Mind, which obviously references the Frank Sinatra song about, you know, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.

20:48And I think we felt that was really apt because this book is a celebration of all the accomplishments that these people and this community has made. And it also like, we kind of wanted to, you know, like say that like making it doesn't necessarily have to mean like one thing or another. It doesn't have to mean like rampant financial success because a lot of our businesses in reality are still struggling or facing uncertainty. And even while we were making the book, three of them closed, I think. So, but we are just trying to say like, to build something and to, you know, support your family, like in New York City is like a great success.

21:30And I really love that you brought up that forward because I think it was really impactful in the ways in which it speaks to the framework for the community, right? Where it's like talking about these businesses that are here, but also speaking to their history and their culinary traditions and the Asian diaspora as a whole. And I think that was really lovely. And sort of to continue our conversation about these communities, one of the things you say is that many of the restaurants and chefs in your book had never done media before, right? Or that they'd never contributed a recipe before. And whether that was due to discomfort or language barriers, you were able to convince a lot of these restaurants to collaborate with you in this way.

22:09And so I'd love to ask you, how did you begin to build and partner with some of these restaurants and their staffs to select recipes that would best represent their restaurants and culinary histories? Yeah, Alice, do you want to talk a little bit about like the Seller Empathy Team and kind of how we built these relationships? Yeah, so the Cellop Empathy team, which has been one of the first teams when First Send Chinatown Love started, is reaching out to merchants and trying to understand what are the needs and what can we best do to support you. So we've had these long and strong relationships for over two years with over 50 merchants that we've worked with.

22:52and because of this trust and great relationship that we were able to develop. I would say that one of the strengths that we have as an organization is coming in with compassion and also understanding of their culture. Some of us can speak their language. Some of us come from immigrant backgrounds where we are able to relate to their livelihoods. So I think coming with that mindset of empathy has allowed us to really strengthen those relationships and be open to asking them, would you participate in our cookbook? It would be such an honor if we could hear more about your stories and let other people know because there are a lot of underrepresented cuisines and small businesses out there because they are not as tech savvy or don't have the PR or language skills.

23:53So that's Seller Empathy, one of the most important teams in Sun Chinatown, love. I think, Elaine, you can. Yeah, so Alice spoke about, you know, we have these relationships with more than 50 businesses. And so for the cookbook, we have 43 businesses. And out of those, 18 of them are from relationships that we already had. And that was really great because there was already that level of trust and understanding. And we had been working with them for a while. and I think the most important thing that we tried to do in this project is prioritize making this a positive experience for all of the businesses that we're working with so some of that is you know in terms of just like meeting them where they are or like where they're comfortable so like if you're reading the book you'll probably notice some of the stories are incredibly long and go into extreme personal detail.

24:48And some of them, you know, you really don't get a ton, but you do get to hear a little bit about like the food or about like their thoughts on food or community. And it's really just a matter of, you know, how much they're comfortable sharing and just trying to work around that. And I think for the recipes, we also primarily let the restaurants actually dictate what recipe they feel comfortable sharing with a wider audience and what maybe like what they feel really like represents their culture or what are they proud to show off and a lot of the businesses you know immediately we're like this is the recipe like this is the one we want this is the one so i'm gonna start with alice let's talk about some of the recipes and and a little bit first about the process of of how you are able to you know get the recipe down.

25:37And then, of course, if there's testing and photography, so a little bit about the book production. But then each of you, I'd love to get a couple recipes that just like you love, like you've made or just like something that you just really dig from the book. So we'll start with you, Alice. Yeah, I can talk about the recipe gathering stage, which we thought would take maybe a month or two, actually took over a couple of months, maybe six months. So we reached out to our restaurants, our seller empathy team. They did such a great job and we asked them for a recipe that would best represent their restaurant or their cuisine.

26:19Ideally, we'd ask for three. Usually we got one and so we then would edit or transcribe the recipes. For example, Northern and Wang Mandu, they don't have any written recipes. This is all what we did was we went to their basement where they make their dumplings from scratch. And we recorded a video, and Kay, the owner, was describing it in Mandarin, and we had one of our Seller Empathy members, Jennifer, translate. And Nat probably transcribed the recipe by viewing that video and also Jennifer's translation. We also did a crowdsourced version of recipe testing where Catherine, our recipe testing lead and our fulfillment lead, we had all these spreadsheets where we opened up to the greater organization where they could test some of these recipes.

27:15And we had a very systematic way of giving feedback and to ensure consistency amongst all of these recipes. Yeah, I love that. it almost feels so authentic in the way that those recipes came about. It reminds me of even trying to get recipes from my grandmother who would be like, you know, you just put a pinch of it in. And I'm like, how much is that? And she's like, you know, you just know when it's right. And it seems like creating this book was a little bit of that, which is a wild cookbook writing experience, but it's really lovely all the same. Yeah, that was definitely our experience with a lot of them.

27:55And I think it's really funny because that's such a relatable experience for so many people who are trying to get these sort of like passed down recipes, whether it's from like, like usually from their own parents or grandparents. And just, yeah, the imprecision and the general like hand waviness of all of it is challenging. And would you mind telling us a couple of your favorite recipes from the book? Yeah, my favorite recipe would be Hana Makoli's Panjion. It's the green scallion pancake. And I like that recipe because of my association with us working in the project. It was the last week where we were proofing the cookbook before we sent it to the printer.

28:36And we were at Elaine's place working from, I don't know, from 7pm to midnight. I think I stayed at 2am or I fell asleep on the couch. But Matt, Elaine's partner, made the Hanamakali pajeon. And I remember we were all ravously... It was Kristoff. Oh, it was Kristoff who made it? Kristoff helped make it. Yeah, Kristoff, one of our other writers. And I think I maybe chopped some scallions. But yeah, we were like, let's make a recipe from the cookbook. Why not? And we were just scarfing the pajeon down. It was delicious. But it just reminded me of working late at night with some of your friends in college and cramming.

29:17But we were just proofing and enjoying the delicious pancake. Yeah. And I will say that is also, it is like a delicious recipe. And I also personally love it because it's one of the many in our cookbook where it's like a specific like style of jeon, which is like a Korean pancake. And so you can put scallions in it or you can put, you know, seafood. If you want a seafood pancake, you can put kimchi. You can put like whatever you have in your fridge. So it really is just a great like base recipe. Yeah, Elaine, what's your favorite recipe? So I think my favorite recipe. I mean, I do have a lot. Like, obviously, the easy answer is, oh, it's so hard to pick.

29:58It's like choosing a favorite child or whatever. You know every cliche in the book. Exactly. I hate cliches. I think one of my favorites, and disclaimer is I didn't actually cook this recipe, but the puluenti from Kwe Cafe, which is like a steamed rice topped with like a grated coconut filling, is a personal favorite and I just I eat that one a lot because I go to Quay Cafe every week and that's one of the ones where like maybe I'll never make it because I always just like to go there and that was like a story that I got to work on and I I really loved it just because I feel like whenever I go there it's kind of like reminds me of home a little bit even like I'm not Malaysian or anything but just because the owner like recognizes me every week and if I'm not there I'll send my boyfriend to go get something for me and she'll be like where's Elaine yeah so Kwe Cafe is this Malaysian cafe located on the lower east side on Eldridge Street and they're only open on the weekends and they change their menu every week and it's everything is made by Veronica the owner and it's just I actually found out about it through Sunshine Town Love Oh, really?