597: Inside New York City's Thai Takeover with Ali Domrongchai

In short

Podcast Summary: This Is TASTE Episode 597 - Inside New York City's Thai Takeover with Ali Domrongchai

Podcast Overview Host(s): Aliza Abarbanel and Matt Rodbard Guest(s): Ali Domrongchai and Geraldine DeRuiter Episode Release Date: May 29, 2023 Episode Description: This episode features Ali Domrongchai, a Brooklyn-based writer and baker, discussing the thriving Thai culinary scene in NYC, her family history in Thai food, and her upcoming Thai Takeover event at the Museum of Food and Drink. The episode also features a conversation with Geraldine DeRuiter about her essay collection, “If You Can't Take the Heat,” exploring themes of food, feminism, and culture.

Key Takeaways

Ali Domrongchai's Journey and Thai Culinary Traditions

Background:
Growing up in her family’s Thai restaurant in North Carolina deeply influenced Ali’s relationship with food.
Early memories include spicy dishes like papaya salad, which instilled a love for heat in her cooking.

Family Influence:
Describes her grandmother's cooking and the Thai tradition of enjoying spicy food.
The family restaurant culture emphasized both community and survival, showcasing the sacrifices made by her aunts to keep the business alive.

Thai Food in NYC:
Insights into the evolution of Thai food in the U.S., emphasizing how globalization and cultural diplomacy have shaped perceptions and dishes.
Critique of how classic dishes, such as Pad Thai, have been adapted for American tastes, often losing their authentic flavor.

Upcoming Thai Takeover Event:
Ali is organizing a Thai food event at the Museum of Food and Drink, showcasing diverse Thai chefs and culinary experiences.

Geraldine DeRuiter's Exploration of Food and Feminism

Personal Background:
Geraldine discusses her father's complex identity and how it influenced her understanding of food, particularly through the lens of family recipes.

Mario Batali's Non-Apology:
DeRuiter reflects on the public backlash against Mario Batali’s poorly written apology, critiquing the absurdity of offering recipes in the midst of serious allegations.

Cultural Commentary:
Her essays explore the intersection of food, gender dynamics, and societal expectations, emphasizing the need for accountability and understanding in cultural narratives.

Broader Themes

Culinary Identity:
Both guests share a passion for the stories behind food, emphasizing cultural roots and personal narratives in shaping culinary identity.

Community and Connection:
The importance of community-building through food, whether through workshops, pop-ups, or events that celebrate cultural heritage.

Emotional Connection to Food:
The conversation highlights how food connects different cultures and personal histories, fostering deeper understanding and appreciation.

Key Concepts

Culinary Diplomacy: The Thai government's initiative to promote Thai cuisine globally as a part of cultural outreach, resulting in a significant rise in Thai restaurants in the U.S.
Cultural Appropriation vs. Appreciation: Discussing the fine line between enjoying and celebrating a culture's food while respecting its origins and authenticity.
Food as Narrative: Exploring how family histories and personal experiences influence cooking styles and preferences.

Concluding Thoughts This episode of *This Is TASTE* provides an engaging exploration of Thai cuisine's evolution in America, underscoring the personal stories behind the food. It highlights the importance of community, cultural identity, and the ongoing journey of understanding and appreciating culinary traditions in a globalized world. The conversations encourage listeners to think critically about the food they eat and the stories that come with it.

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Transcript

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0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. A long time ago, hundreds of years ago, at funerals, they'd present like cookbooks from people's lives and like recipes that they made. And in them were like traditional like curries and things that we like see and know as Thai. But with all sorts of ingredients like figs and like whole hams, like things that are not always associated with Thai food. This is Taste. I'm your host, Eliza Barbanel. Ali Damrongchai is a writer, recipe developer, and baker in Brooklyn. She's passionate about researching and uplifting Thai culinary traditions, from teaching lukchup workshops to popping up with pandan lemongrass mochi cake and other treats at restaurants around the city.

1:14It's so fun having Ali on the show to talk about the exciting state of Thai food in New York, including her upcoming Thai takeover at the Museum of Food and Drink on May 29th. Ali Damrongchai, this is Tais. Thank you for coming on the podcast. Thank you for having me. So such a formal way to chat because we get to talk all the time. But I'm so happy to have you in the studio and to get to talk about your perspective on food and everything. I know. Me too. I was thinking the same thing. Like we I feel like we know a lot about each other. But just going into this, like you're going to learn a lot, a lot more.

1:50Yeah. We're getting into the Dhamrung Chai family lore, hopefully. We're getting to what drives you as a writer and recipe developer. I guess before we talk about any of that, I'd love to get a little bit of insight into your perspective on food, how you grew up. And I'm curious if you could tell me an early food memory from growing up. Oh, my goodness. Yes. That's such a fun question, especially because when you look through photo albums when I was a kid, there is not a single photo of me not holding, eating or just like looking at food. I think like there are like hundreds of photos of me with a like security sour cream and onion can of Pringles.

2:33But a like very vibrant food memory that comes to mind is my grandmother. We were sitting down. I believe we were eating papaya salad and she was drenched in sweat. And I was looking at her like a little like, huh, are you are you OK? and like mine I don't add I didn't add much chilies on mine when I was a kid and she looked at me and she went it's it's not good if you're not sweating like it's not worth it if you're not like burning in heat and then I think that was the same week that I bit into a raw bird's eye chili for the first time I think I must have been like six and I my mouth was on fire I was sobbing and just all the all the heat all over my body.

3:19But I it didn't scar me. I think that moment made me really dedicated to to take hold of the heat. And now I love my food really spicy. I like it as spicy as her sometimes more than. So I like to think that I make her proud in that sense. But yeah, I was gonna say she must be really proud of you. Yeah, I think lately, Lately more so. We were actually out to eat this past summer at one of my favorite restaurants in the city, Crew. And I overheard her talking with the waiter to make my dish not as spicy because I can't handle it. And I immediately cut her off and we got into a little like tit for tat.

4:01And then I asked them to bring out like maximum heat. And then I just like, even though I was in pain, I was stone cold. I was like, Grandma, I can take you down. That's so funny. And I love thinking about like being a child, like growing up eating Thai food. I think like obviously spice is such a big part of that. And do you feel like your family tried to, like did they hand you the bird's eye tilly? Is there a way that people were kind of trying to like train the next generation to eat spicy? Or is it something that you just kind of took upon yourself? This was definitely something I took upon myself.

4:32growing up there are definitely dishes Thai dishes not everything is spicy that are catered toward children catered toward everyone but with an emphasis on kids like patsy you like that's like a very sweet and salty dish masamon curry not very spicy all of those things are very good for kids for me I think just being a little bit stubborn as a kid my one of my many nicknames was bowl. Like I was like a little bowl. And so I was very adamant about proving to my family that I could handle the spice. So always, I always asked for the same spice as the adults. And even though it led to many painful stomach aches, I like to think that I'm stronger for it and that I have a calloused iron stomach now.

5:20Yeah, absolutely. I do think it is exposure therapy. Like the more spice you eat, the more you can handle. So you just got like an early head start on it. Yeah. So something that I know about you, like personally and also professionally, is that you grew up in your family's Thai restaurant. But I feel like we've never talked about it at length. And now that I have you on the mic, I would love to hear about just what that was like for you growing up, like what kind of restaurant it was and what kind of like roles you had in it. Yeah. So to start, I was a child throughout all of it. So I when my family actually moved away to North Carolina, so I didn't really get the same working in the restaurant that like my father did.

5:58So they had that restaurant for about 30 years. And growing up around that restaurant in that restaurant was like was like a dream. Like it felt like that was the space to be. I would walk in. I'd immediately get served chicken satay. I'd have like mango sticky rice like in the queue ready for me towards the end of the night. I would go on the back and we'd put all sorts of things in the deep fryer, like Oreos and like donuts. And it was just it was the best. And being around the kitchen was so exciting. And then when my grandparents got older, my aunt Nalek actually took over the restaurant but moved it to Royal Palm Beach where she opened up peppermint Thai.

6:46And that was just somewhere that we like that. That again was like another third space where we would just like always go after school, always be little gremlins in the back room, drawing over everything and everywhere. And it wasn't until I got older that I started thinking about the restaurant not only as like a place for fun, but also in the way that it was survival for my family. we obviously associate food with so much love and joy but I think a lot of it that I picked up as on as I got older was a lot of the sacrifices that were made for the restaurant my grandmother has six sisters and all of them worked in the restaurant they brought all of the sisters over to work in their original restaurant Siam Gourmet and out of all of them my grandmother was the only one who was a chef and the only one who wanted to be a chef and wanted to be cooking.

7:50My other aunts, they had dreams of being a teacher. My aunt Nalek wanted to do broadcasting and she had an amazing voice and has an amazing voice and personality for it. All of my aunts put a lot of that aside to open this restaurant and to be there for this restaurant. And that is a sacrifice. And that I think about a lot when I think about the work that I'm actively trying to do with Thai food and trying to uplift Thai voices, add a different new perspective to Thai food. I have very early memories of being in the restaurant and hearing customers complain about like dishes like pad thai for example.

8:42It became at least in the South Florida clientele. Pad thai was is something that is the sauce is very simple. It's made with tamarind fish sauce and sugar. And that fish sauce smell is, I mean, to me, it's like one of the best smells in the world. I love it so much. But to customers there, it leaned more into like the pungent. They did not like the fish sauce smell. So it got to a point where some, like when people would order pad thai for takeout, they would have to remove the fish sauce and replace it with soy sauce. And they would make a lot of those adjustments based on what the customers want and what the customers expected.

9:28And even more, there were so many customers that had such an authority on the food that they were serving where they would want to speak with like my grandma to ask them if they if how she makes it. Because when they went to Bangkok one time 20 years ago, it tasted differently. Yeah. and that kind of authority that people brought to Thai food really pushed me to understand why yeah no I think it's so interesting and um you know obviously like there was this huge boom in Thai restaurants in the United States in the 80s during this period of immigration and I believe like the Thai government was even like helping people immigrate to open restaurants in the United States absolutely Thai food as tourism like you know I just went to Thailand and I was asking you for all the places I wanted to go eat at because like to me like obviously that's just one part of the culture but I think it's a part of the culture that like Americans have really fallen in love with but it's interesting to think about like the kind of Thai food that's introduced to people versus like all of the variety that actually is out there and the way that people have kind of had to evolve their understanding of what Thai food can be.

10:35Yeah no absolutely I think about that a lot I the the uh the government program that pushed thai food is called their um gastro diplomacy program under the uh kitchen of the world and it's changed a few times but i i think now it sits at kitchen of the world in the thai select program but basically yes in the 2002 um the thai government saw an opportunity to push thai food globally i think that they invested somewhere around 500 million baht, which I think is the equivalent to around 12 million USD, to not only train chefs, but put them around the world globally, give them cookie cutter menus, and encourage them, less encourage and more push them to use Thai ingredients, get all of their imports in from Thailand, and kind of follow a very specific set menu.

11:34And I think that that coupled with this is kind of going back a little bit to the decades before on what led to that. But the United States intervention in Thailand, in Southeast Asia during the Cold War and after World War II really, really kickstarted the global tourism industry for Thailand. And something that people don't know and is always so surprised when I tell them this is that during World War II, Thailand actually declared war on the United States. They joined the Axis powers and they let out this statement that we will no longer be your little brown brothers. And they joined the Axis powers.

12:19And then when the war ended, the United States essentially came to them and said, you know, if you if you put this all behind, if you put out a statement that says that this was an accident, that you never intended to do this, that this was a big mistake, we will give you a lot of money to rebuild and we will put roads for you. We'll build all this up so you can make money off of tourism from us. And it worked really well. Yeah. It worked incredibly well, as we can see a testament to now. I think food and wine just put Thailand as one of the best global culinary city in the world, or Bangkok specifically.

12:58Yeah. We have the White Lotus. We have all of these things. Yes, the White Lotus. Of course, the White Lotus. and during that time when you're having an influx of so many like Americans and Europeans coming to Thailand after their visits there they're coming back home and they're bringing all these recipes the first Thai cookbook published in America was by Marie Wilson and it was called Siamese Cookery And in the book, it had very interesting caricatures of Thai people as being very relaxed and laid back and having delicious food, a lot of exotization, while encouraging people to, you don't need fish sauce, you need soy sauce, you don't need these things, you can do all this.

13:50And I understand that those ingredients weren't widely available during this time in the 60s, but the way that she was writing about it was kind of cementing Thailand in the West and cementing non-Thai people as authority over Thai food. And all of that kind of brings us back to the gastro diplomacy program when Thailand saw this huge opportunity of American, Europeans, all over the world, people's really big interest in Thai food and capitalize off of it. I mean, it was genius and it did work. I'm sure it worked by their merits. But there have been a lot of I would go as far to say there have been a lot of consequences because of that.

14:41It really pushed a singular narrative of what Thai food is, a narrative that was not really developed by Thai people and instead was was designed with profit in mind. Yeah. And it's it's disappointing, but it is exciting to be someone in Thai food today that is having these conversations, having these conversations with Thai chefs, having these conversations with non-Thai people. And there's a lot of work to be done, but I think people are receptive to it and it's exciting. Yeah, I think it's totally valid to be examining the history that's led us to this point. I think that's the only way you can really understand where we actually are.

15:26And I think maybe this is my optimistic impression, but there's an opportunity to say, well, if you love pad thai, you're really going to love fill in the blank of any of the other amazing regional seasonal thai dishes that exist out there. Yeah, I absolutely agree. And it's so funny because when I first started studying this at like 18, I was such a cynic. I was like, I think I went on like a pad thai strike for like two years. Like I wouldn't eat pad thai because I was like, oh, this is not fair. Like pad thai is so like fabricated to fit this like notion of like one singular Thai-ness that was only developed to push a different narrative.

16:08And I can appreciate like pad thai is delicious. Especially if you're not swapping out the fish sauce. No, of course, that is a big part of it. This episode is brought to you by Aura Frames. If you're one of those last-minute shoppers, you might know the feeling. Ideas are running low and the clock is ticking. Here's a fun idea. Aura Frames. Aura Frames is the solution with a gift that feels personal, a little curated, and sent with love. And a gift that can be purchased in no time with a few clicks of the mouse. Aura Frames are great. They sent me one to check out, and it was really cool and dumb simple to set up.

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17:30That's A-U-R-A frames dot com promo code TASTE. The deal is exclusive to listeners and frames sell out fast, so order yours now to get in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Hi there, it's Matt, co-host of the show. We are currently running a This Is Taste listener survey, and we'd love to hear from you. Do you have a guest request? A restaurant you wish we'd visit to talk about on Three Things? What about a lesser-known cookbook author who deserves a spot in our studio chair? You can let us know by clicking the link in our show notes to complete the survey.

18:07It will only take a couple minutes, I swear, and will help us continue to make the best show possible. That's the This Is Taste listener survey link in our show notes. So much of the food that came from the westernization of Thailand is incredible. but it's also exciting to think about all of the different regional Thai cuisines the way that people in that region in Siam because Thailand um if if you weren't aware was has only been a nation since 1938 it hasn't even been 100 years and before that it was the kingdom of Siam And it's exciting pulling out all like the ways that people cooked before that.

19:02There was a lot of a lot of experimentation. There is actually this really cool. I don't have the exact name of like the grouping of them, but like Chef Om of the executive chef owner at Crew shared with me. that a long time ago, hundreds of years ago, at funerals, they'd present like cookbooks from people's lives and like recipes that they made. And in them were like traditional like curries and things that we like see and know as Thai, but with all sorts of ingredients like figs and like whole hams, like things that are not always associated with Thai food, but really emphasized standardized cooking with what is local to you because that is that is traditional Thai cooking and there's a sense of being adaptable and just cooking things that that means something to you like that is what is exciting about Thai food I love that and you're talking about Chef Om and crew a little bit already but I'd love if you could just speak a little more to like what the New York Thai community, like Thai food community is like and what kinds of kind of like skill, knowledge sharing you've been able to be a part of?

20:23Oh, my goodness. I might get emotional thinking about this just because it's been I've only I've only been living in New York for the past three years. Yeah. And I think being able to be integrated into our tiny but mighty Thai community has made this place feel so special to me and has really been something that the first time I stepped into crew for example um the uh kiss one of the co-owners um was like oh you're Thai your family and I like I got really emotional because the I moving to a new place can feel really lonely, but I think finding those roots with people really, really make all the difference.

21:13And expanding out to the other bits of the Thai community has been really beautiful. A few years ago, when I was interning at Food & Wine, I wrote a piece on why like why do so many Thai restaurants look all the same and just kind of like a historical piece um chronicalizing how Thai restaurants got to where they are and that is something that resonated with a lot of Thai people both in New York and outside of it and I felt like that was kind of my entryway in and since then have been able to make so many really wonderful connections with people who who feel the same way about Thai food who understand and deeply resonate with the frustration that is felt when non-Thai people try to put authority and try to put Thai food in a box and being able to be a part of that thai community is really special because there is a lot of really cool things happening there is a growing number of thai restaurants who adamantly do not have pad thai on their menu and i i don't want pad thai to be like the the punching bag of this episode but um it is exciting even as a symbol of just pad thai has been like a banner for for thailand for so long a banner that was not chosen by thai people it was chosen by the government to push a very certain narrative and seeing chefs across the city find ways to highlight different parts of Thailand is just really amazing.

23:09And it's so special getting to connect with so many different Thai people across the city. Like, for example, I teach Luke troop classes, which is kind of like a Thai marzipan. It looks very similar, but it's made with mung beans instead. And at my last class, there was an elder from the temple there, and she was Facebook living the entire event, which was very sweet. But at the end of it, she told me that like, over like 100 people had been popping in and out of the live, just like amazed that like a Thai American was teaching the art of Luke Choup. So it's really cool and special to be part of that Thai community and to to represent one side or one part of it.

24:03Yeah, I really like love being your friend and getting to see all of the different ways that you're kind of like not only sharing stories, but like teaching, like whether you're teaching a LookTube class or you're making like desserts and having them at like different pop ups around the city. Even like I think you texted me recently and you're like, hey, do you want any durian? because I'm going in on it in bulk with the ZobZob people at Costco. I was like, what did you guys all do with the durian? So we actually had not done it yet. We had plans to do it. Oh, if the durian is going to still happen, I would like to know.

24:37The durian is still happening. So wait, what happened? Costco has durian in bulk. That's the origin of this. Costco has durian in bulk. Yes. This is what I've been hearing through the grapevine. Through the Thai food grapevine. Through the Thai food grapevine, some of my friends at ZabZab pay specifically, informed me that there have been like whisperings and like the Thai WhatsApp chats and Facebook groups that like durian has hit Costco. We because it's like I think they were saying it was like 40 pounds of durian. I live in a New York apartment and it's not big enough. We are all making plans to go in on it.

25:17But I went last month and it wasn't there. And I was really devastated. I think they had like dried durian, like dried mango, but I wasn't interested in that, unfortunately. Well, I hope it comes through. But we are like, every time I see them, we're like ready. We're ready when it strikes. I have my car. And so I'll get a few cases of them. Your car is going to just be the most beautifully pungent durian car. Because we've been talking. We are talking about doing like themed dinners. I think upcoming we're working on like a mango dinner. Because they have a really delicious mango curry on their menu.

25:53And to that, I'll accompany a few different like mango, like mango and sticky rice, of course, like a few other desserts. But I keep on, I think just being like part of the younger generation of like ties like in adjacent to restaurants is that I think people are ready for durian. but a lot of older people who have been in this industry much longer still think that people are not ready and that they're scared of it which is understandable there's a lot of horrible stories about durian yeah yeah i think maybe you don't have like the years of baggage of people not liking it absolutely it but i think it's time i do think it's time as well i do think like coming into it with fresh eyes and like seeing excitement around it I mean durian itself I think like genetically taste buds wise it's like a it's kind of like a clean 50 50 whether or not you have the capacity it's like the cilantro gene yeah yeah I mean I I think that like you know durian is such a prized fruit for so many people from so many cultures and like New York is a hub for people.

27:10So I think there are probably people who already love it. And there are other people who know that it is this like, if you know, you know, kind of thing and want to prove that they're not of the pad Thai only ilk of Thai eaters and want to go for it. And I'm also curious, you know, you I think are such a great baker. And I know you've done a lot of cool things with durian. Like, where do you get your recipe baking ideas from and what kinds of things are exciting to you oh my goodness such a fun question um i'll say my first i mean aside like my my grandma's not per se a baker and a lot of thai desserts don't really fall in the category of baking because they're a lot of steaming a lot of um you know mostly steaming actually now that i think i was trying to think of other things but like yeah no steaming is like the big thing.

28:01Or like a chilled like layered. Yes, yeah. Or like heating and then chilling. Things like that. So early like interest in baking came from my mom who is an amazing home baker. And when I started to get really interested in Thai history, I noticed a lot of, this was before I did my dive, but I noticed a lot of Thai desserts that had like European leaning that had me wonder like well okay how did that happen like there's a lot of custards um there is a there's actually a cake a cake called um farang which is farang means foreigner yeah like I know that one and so it's like it's just basically a cake um but cakes just were not something super familiar and like in in Thai um markets and Thai culinary canon that like Like that was the name of it, Faring.

29:01But reading about how that came to be was really interesting. So you have this now goes back to the 1500s. But around like the 1510s, maybe 1511, when Portuguese came as colonizers, missionaries, traders, you know how they came. You know how they came to Southeast Asia during that time. um they brought with them a lot of desserts like like custards um like marzipan like things like that and um those were two things that yes thai people um or thai people in that region did like that like yeah like these are exciting these are cool okay but we don't really have flat like we don't really have things like that we don't really have almonds so it's ovens we don't ovens So like we got to like regroup and figure this out.

29:58But there's a second part of it as Thai people in Thailand wears like a very proud badge of honor. And that like the hashtag never been colonized. And that happened because the people of Thailand were very crafty and very smart. They very quickly noticed the power dynamics coming between like Europeans coming into the region and their kingdom. So what they would do is they would mirror, like they would mirror people who came. They would start dressing like them. They would start making their foods. They would do things and mimic their customs, traditions, food ways as a means of proving that you can't colonize us because we're already Western.

30:47We already are doing the things that you're doing. So there's not it's not necessary. Like we're good. Like you we check. You have these things that you want to do. Check we're already doing them because as a survival tactic and a means of preserving themselves. And I found that, of course, incredibly interesting, heartbreaking for many reasons. But with that, we are left with a wealth of incredibly cool and interesting Thai desserts that are this awesome mashup between like European customs and technique and Thai flavors and customs and technique. so one of those is like a mokeng which is a mung bean custard and it is essentially mung beans and traditionally it's made with duck eggs and palm sugar and coconut but um the the way because a lot of a lot of thai people don't really like like many asian people not too sweet is is very much true for Thai food and Thai desserts.

32:04So we fry shallots and use the oil to help season the mung bean custard and then top them on top. It's like savory sweet. It like maybe sounds a little bit weird to hear, but it is incredibly delicious and perfect. I wouldn't change it for the world. But those custards and that way of eating and that way of heating eggs to make a custard came from the Portuguese. And I think seeing that really got me curious into all of the ways that the people of Siam adapted their culinary traditions and customs for this new way of eating. And so with that in mind, I kind of, I use that lens in everything that I make now.

32:59So that same custard, I recently made a Mogang cheesecake, which had the same concept, but of course with some delicious cheesecake. And actually took almonds, which is something that now you can find in Thailand. But like back then you couldn't find in Thailand and use it as like a, instead of the graham crackers, but like as a crust. And it was very delicious and fun. So I kind of go into a lot of my baking and cooking, for that matter, just with the lens of throughout the history, so much of Thai food has been about adaptation and new ideas flowing. And I kind of like go through it with that, which I think is really exciting.

33:55And I think it's something that people don't acknowledge enough about Thai food is all the ways. Or maybe they don't acknowledge because they don't know. And it's something that I want people to know. Yeah. No, I think that's really interesting. Even the idea that, like, you know, chili peppers, I think, are so strongly associated with Thai food, but they're not indigenous to Thailand. They were brought over a long time ago. Yeah. Also by the Portuguese. Also by the Portuguese. Shout out to the Portuguese, I guess. They got, I don't remember where exactly they got from South America, but. Yeah.

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34:26I mean, I think of that. I think of when I was in Bangkok earlier this year, like the most incredible like Thai Chinese food that I had there. And I think in general, just the spirit of like constant adaptation, which makes me think about all of the delicious mochi cakes that you've been making. I'm curious, like what draws you to mochi cake specifically? Because I feel like it's something I would associate as like one of your star dishes. That's so sweet. Oh, my gosh. Mochi cakes. I also love mochi cakes so dearly. Mochi cakes are one of those things that so the concept of like the mochi cake and my initial draw to them is, of course, the original Hawaiian recipe, the Hawaiian butter mochi.

35:16but eating mochi and the first time I made it a few years ago with my grandma she just would not stop talking about how like this tastes like all like the little like like kunom little snacks that she would eat as a kid and of course immediately boom light bulb in my head well a I've got to make this for every time I see her because anytime she likes a dessert I get really happy and it's really amazing but um mochi and like the the texture and the way that it's made is really um adjustable and is like really um really fun to experiment different flavors with i think one of my most popular at the time which kind of got my gears turning to make all these other flavor combinations was I did a Thai tea mochi cake that I put Thai tea into the batter and then topped it with the sweetened condensed glaze because I love sweetened condensed dearly and that is like you need like a big heaping of it whenever you're drinking Thai tea so it felt natural that that would go on top and one of my first pop-ups like people were just like oh my goodness this is one of the most delicious, incredible things I've ever eaten, which was, of course, amazing and music to my ears as a baker, which then pushed me to explore different ways to play around with the form and flavor.

36:53And now I think my like big flagship mochi cake is a pandan mochi cake with a lemongrass glaze that I consistently have at Larry's Cafe. And when I don't have it there, I hear about it in my DMs. And I've actually made a few for people to pick up entire ones, which is really funny and fun. I love that Flamberg combination. I want to make sure we talk about your cookbook club because I think this is such an amazing and surreal thing. You launched this cookbook club monthly here in New York in August 2023. Wow, yeah. I'm in the group chat. It is very active. I would say you have probably like 50 to 60 people who make dishes from these cookbooks and come often to your apartment building or like other restaurants or places like that every month.

37:45Like, are you surprised to see this growth and interest? And what is it like to be like running this cookbook club? Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I cannot believe it's been that long. Actually, my the so cookbook clubs have been around forever. I know Kitchen Arts and Letters has like a really long standing one that they've had for decades. I first got the idea to start my own. I was in the office. This was again when I was a intern fellow at Food and Wine. A co-worker was offhandedly talking about a cookbook club that they're going to that weekend. And I just thought that was so fun. And so I think later that night, I went on my story and I was like, okay, cookbook club.

38:28Does anyone want to join one? Does anyone want to start one together? And I think I had about 12 people at that time. We had our first meeting. We cooked from Andrea Wynn's Evergreen Vietnamese. I love that book. An amazing book. and um i think just that initial sharing it online got like a lot of people interested to come to more of them and slowly it's just been growing by word of mouth um it really really it like tripled quadrupled by a ton when my friend steph lau when her cookbook club probably coming about a year ago first went very viral on TikTok and Instagram. And I think a lot of people saw that and they had a yearning to meet other people.

39:21I think a lot of us still feel the loneliness from the COVID pandemic and are looking for ways to build and make community. and I think cookbook clubs have just erupted as the perfect vessel for that coming together with a cookbook is so fun you are you're there with a purpose you get to cook you get to bring that dish to a big meetup and even if you don't know anyone there you already have the conversation starter of, oh, what did you bring? Like, oh, I made this. Oh, have you tried this? And it's really amazing seeing people that I did not know a year and a half ago at this point come to every meeting and become integral parts of my own community and build community within that.

40:15And I also think that people are excited about food right now in general. Yeah. And cookbooks are one of the ways that people can really engage with different cuisines because there's step-by-step guides to make all these different recipes and it's it's really cool it's been really cool to see I actually the the reason I felt equipped to start a cookbook club is because I'd won the housing lottery and I was just moving into an apartment with a really big rooftop I think now a year and a half later. And like, I think there's about 300 people in the chat, but like you said, about 50 to 60 that come consistently.

40:57I still don't always know all these people super intimately. So we've been moving. The cookbook club is actually moving fully to Crewe, a restaurant in Brooklyn, the one that I mentioned earlier that I love deeply. And we're going to be doing cookbook clubs there where we have the general potluck where we all come together, eat together, share recipes. But then a few days later, the chef Om is going to be making a menu based off of the book, but infused with Thai flavors and Thai cooking traditions. Oh, I love that. Which is really cool. I'm very excited about it. We did our pilot one with Nox Kalaya, with Kalaya Southern Kitchen, which went great.

41:45It was so much fun. And next up, we have Merin's Make It Plant-Based Southern, which I'm so excited about, not to spoil too much, but we were talking about doing like a Massaman pot pie, which I have not tried yet, but I'm still thinking about it every night. I'm really happy here that there's an evolution for the Cookbook Club because I love that you were so generous to host it in your apartment building roof, but I feel like it's just a long time to be doing that. I also think it's inevitable for like me to get a notice from my landlord. Yeah, your landlord's listening to this right now. So that's what's been happening.

42:23I know that it must be hard to pick a favorite, but I'm curious if you have any especially memorable cookbook clubs over the past year and a half. We did do Fatty Catan's Bethlehem last July, and we ended up raising around, I think$700 to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund. Part of my cookbook club is we also have crafts. We do, we eat and then we make crafts. And for that craft that day, I'm known for, my family has these five large towering beautiful fig trees and I dry the figs. I cut them and dry them and put them in resin and had people pay to like get the charms and have all the materials there for people to make jewelry.

43:10So people, by buying the charms, they were raising money for Palestinian children's really fun. And that was just such a special night. And we had actually people from the organization come and speak about their work. And it's just so beautiful being with a group of people who are all so open and caring for community. And it's honestly one of the best things that I've been a part of living here. Yeah, I think that sounds like a really special meeting amongst many special meetings. And I think there probably is something there that if someone cares enough to, you know, buy the book, read the book, make something from it, like bring it to share with people, that there's a generosity of spirit that comes up in other ways as well.

43:55Yeah, absolutely. So talking about cookbooks, I'm curious if you would write a cookbook, what would it be? I have many ideas in the world of potential cookbooks. But one that is pressing that I think about quite a bit is a Thai-American cookbook called Kanooms. Kanooms is also my pop-up name. A khanom in Thai is like a like a little snack or a little dessert because they don't really have like dessert portions like in their list of because they don't really have like larger dessert portions or views on dessert like we do here in America. And gnomes at the end is kind of like the like I'm from Florida.

44:37I was born in Florida. I'm a Thai American girl. And I don't know if anyone else picks up on this, but like the gnome to me is like the like nom nom nom. No, yeah. Obviously, I think of that. Okay, good. That's very affirming. And I'm interested in writing a cookbook one day about Thai American desserts, but also talking about sweetness, not only as a flavor, but also the ways in which Thai people have been trained and taught to perform levels of sweetness. A large Thai tourism campaign is the land of the smiles. And throughout my life, I've witnessed my family kind of have like that. OK, restaurants open at showtime.

45:23It's time. Like doesn't matter if I get cursed out at. I have to be the sweetest person in the entire world because that's what customers expect. And that is something that is very interesting. It saddens me. But it's an exciting topic that I think the sweetness of desserts. Sweet is a major proponent of Thai food and Thai flavor. And I think it being a vessel to talk about something bigger and more important would be a dream. Yeah, I think it sounds like a really special cookbook. And you would probably do an amazing cookbook club about it when it would come out. Cookbook club of all the cookbook clubs.

46:05The mega cookbook club. Shinal Bloss. Okay, before we get into the rapid fire to close, I want to ask you about the upcoming Thai takeover event that you're planning at the Museum of Food and Drink here in New York, in case folks that are listening want to come. Oh, my gosh. Yes, I can't wait. So on May 29th from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Museum of Food and Drink in Dumbo, we're having a fun Thai happy hour. And that is going to feature a bunch of different Thai chefs, artists, other Thai brands, and just kind of mingle, eat a lot of delicious things. Something that I love is like Thai food has sweet, salty, sour, spicy umami.

46:46And scientifically, I'm not being biased right now. Scientifically, Thai food is the most delicious cuisine in the world because it makes all those things in our brains light up. And the current exhibit at MoFed right now is the world of flavor to your brain and kind of breaking down how our brain reacts to flavor. So it couldn't be a more perfect combination. And I can't wait about it. The science doesn't lie. Yeah, it's not me. It's the science. Yeah, it's not you at all. From February 20th to March 7th, dive into Canada's biggest culinary festival, Montreal en Lumière, an exclusive partnership with the McCord Stewart Museum and its exhibition, On the Menu Montreal, a restaurant story.

47:31The 2026 festival invites food lovers on a flavorful journey through time. Montreal's top restaurateurs will reimagine 65 years of the city's iconic astronomy, crafting inventive, nostalgia-inspired dishes with a modern twist. Prepare your palate. World-renowned chefs, including several Michelin-starred talents, will team up with over 80 of Montreal's finest local chefs to create unforgettable, one-of-a-kind menus. The full program is available at MontrealOnLumiere.com, presented by Lotto Quebec in collaboration with National Bank. Today's episode is brought to you by ButcherBox. As a food writer, I can be a little skeptical about subscription cooking boxes you hear about on podcasts.

48:14There's big talk about cooking simplicity, but you're usually left with disappointment after smashing that promo code. Now, Clayton, have you ever tried one of those subscription boxes? Yeah, Matt, my friend gave me a code for that one that has all the chopped vegetables and little baggies. I felt like a drug dealer trying to cook dinner. Yeah, man, I have so been there. Butcher Box is a true exception. I was sent a box of premium beef and pork and was blown away by the quality and variety. There was 100 % grass-fed pasteurized ribeye, tri-tip, and ground sirloin for my favorite at-home smash burger recipe.

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49:30Visit butcherbox.com slash taste to get this limited time offer and free shipping always. That's butcherbox.com slash taste. Don't forget to use our link so they know we sent you. I'm going to do a little rapid fire with you to close, okay? Ready. Okay, your favorite cookbook right now? It's warm right now, so I'm pulling back Von Diaz's Isla's. I love it. Your favorite coffee shop in New York? Larry's Cafe. I love the Larry's ice cream. And I think maybe for people that are listening that don't know it, that it's cafe, but it's cafe like the Vietnamese. Yes. Right. So it's a Vietnamese coffee shop.

50:07Yes. Yeah. OK. Your favorite bakery in New York right now? Has to be Khao Nam in Elmhurst. It's like a Thai dessert shop. It's fabulous. Oh, I would love to go there. Oh, let's go together. OK. Your go-to celebration restaurant in New York? Crew. Mm-hmm. Your favorite ice cream flavor? cookies and cream. What you would consider to be the best sandwich of all time. I love a BLT. Summer tomatoes. Yeah, summer tomatoes. Slightly salted. Crispy bread. It's perfect. Yum. Your go-to late night snack. This is going to be weird. I love a chocolate chip kids cliff bar. Microwave for five seconds. It's a delicacy.

50:57What happens to the texture? Does it get melty? It gets like really soft and it tastes like a ooey gooey cookie straight from the oven. I don't know. You have to try it. I believe you. So I'm going to buy one just to try this. I've got like a dozen of them. I'll bring one for you next time. Okay. The first thing that you want to eat whenever you go back to Thailand. Roti saimai for sure. It's like a sweetened roti with the best way I can describe it is like cotton candy in the center. It like melts in your mouth and the roti is like warm and it's delicious. Sounds really good. OK, finally, a fictional food scene like from a book or a movie that you wish you could magically eat in real life.

51:39OK, you might laugh. Cormac McCarthy's The Road. There's a scene where they find the canned peaches that I think about a lot whenever I see canned peaches. And I just like I want to eat them so bad. Is this why you're like a low-key prepper? Yeah, I mean, it's why my dad indoctrined me into it. It was actually the first book I read in like third grade. It was The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Yeah, we did like a little book club, me and my dad. And so I want to eat those peaches. We need like a whole second podcast just to unpack that. But thank you so much for sharing that and everything with me, Allie.

52:19This is so much fun. This was great. Thank you for having me. Geraldine DeRoyter, welcome. This is Tase. How are you? I'm great. How are you doing? This is exciting. I'm excited, too. I'm looking forward to chatting with you. Your book is something that I've had on my desk for a while. It's out in paperback now. It is, yeah. Pick it up. It just came out. If you can't take the heat, collection of essays and thoughts and terrific writing. Just really great. Let's talk about your father in Beef Stroganog. It's a terrific piece of writing. And it weaves in this fun fact that your father was a spy.

52:57Was he a spy? Well, there we go. So let's get into it. Tell me about this Stroganov and why it compelled you to write the essay. So my father and I, we didn't live on the same continent for my entire life. Like I never shared an address with my dad. The way I describe it is my mom left Europe and my father kind of in one fell swoop. And so my dad lived in Germany my entire life, but he was of Ukrainian and Russian descent. And then he grew up in New York and worked for the Department of Defense for his entire career. So he had this kind of confluence and mix of identities and kind of cultural touchstones.

53:46And that was reflected in his mannerisms, in the food that he enjoyed, in his accent, and actually in his names. So the name that he went by was not his birth name. And my mother said early on in their marriage, she found a drawer full of passports with different names that all belonged to him. so I knew that he did work of some sort of covert intelligence capacity but I didn't find that out until I was much much older my dad I knew he spoke Russian I knew he spoke Ukrainian I knew he spoke like half a dozen other languages but the only dish that he cooked that had this very sort of Slavic root was stroganoff.

54:39Wow. Was it like the classic American style of stroganoff, like heavy on the sour cream? Not really, no. I was wondering that. He used a can of V8. That is wild. I love that. Cooking with V8 is so smart. It's so 60s. Yeah, I love it. Yeah. Do they even sell V8 anymore? I don't know. I know he got, I'm sure they do actually, But I know he got his from the commissary. Yeah. OK. So this. So you don't know if he was a spy, but he was clearly working intelligence. You know what? My husband got the stories out of him. And there was one where he told us this story about it. Like it ended up being he's like, well, this guy was mad at me.

55:21And Rand kept pulling the thread. And he's like, well, why was he mad at you? And he's like, well, you know, he thought we were friends. But then I did something that upset him. And it turned out the thing that my father did that upset the guy was my father threw him in a trunk of a car, closed the trunk, drove him across Checkpoint Charlie, pulled him out. And then the man was interrogated by, I guess, intelligence officers. And so that was the thing that my father did that upset the guy. Yeah. But to get that story out, Rand had to like pull at this thread for hours. Yeah. Well, I love that.

55:58I love that piece. You also write about paying the check on dates, the complexity and pageantry of this great act. What can we learn from your writing? Oh, gosh. I think that we fall into weird patterns that we don't even realize. And I notice it, too, that my husband and I share finances. We both pay the bills. We both have money that we bring in to our home. But when we go out, if he puts the card down, I notice people will thank him. Interesting. Yeah. You're sharing finances. Both your names are on the card. Yeah. Wow. That's a dynamic that has a little bit of ick to it. It's an old school dynamic.

56:45But at the same time, I don't think anything of it. I'll be like, oh, thank you, honey. And I'm like, wait, what just happened? That's my money. I paid for that meal equally. And he's great about being like, no, thank you. I love that. He's great about that, which I really appreciate because it's a good reminder that like we we also need that reality check. You know, women do like feminists do. We all need that reality check of, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I contributed. I did that. So I want to talk about Mario Batali. I think that your writing came into focus for many of us in journalism through this essay.

57:23And you write a terrific postscript in the book. And I encourage you all to pick up the book if you know Geraldine's writing, even from just this Batali essay. Pick up several copies, actually, if you have the chance. Great for gifting. Yeah, great for gifting. Beautiful cover, too. Nice work. Yeah, thank you. You know, you won a James Beard Award. I mean, it's one of the most memorable pieces in the past decade, half decade. I'll even say decade. I mean, it was really important. Oh, my goodness. Thank you. I want to talk about the piece a bit. And really, first off, like, it wasn't written in, like, Bon Appetit or, you know, a big publication.

58:02You wrote it. Yeah. And what inspired you to write it in the first place? So do you remember when his apology came out? Like, do you remember the hubbub around it? I remember exactly where I was. Hilariously, I was at an event at Chelsea Market that day, that evening, and I was with other journalists and it had come out and we were talking about it. Yeah. And just like, holy shit. This is interesting. So explain what. It was bonkers. Set it up a little bit. OK, so it's late. I think it's late 2017. Yeah, exactly. And we're kind of in the middle of the height of the Me Too movement coming to a head.

58:45Yeah. I mean, I think the big New Yorker article for Weinstein came out in October of 2017. And then, you know, all the reporting started to fall into place. Right. So we're now it's now December. It's I think it's around Christmas time. But Tali sends out an apology for allegations of sexual misconduct, which actually turned out to be I think misconduct was the wrong word. I think it turned out to be allegations of assault, which then led to, I think, a criminal case which was dropped. But then there was a civil case which was settled. There was a lot that came out of this. and his newsletter is where is the vehicle in which the apology was sent out and it is this very strange PR crafted non-apology of well you know I didn't live up to my values and there were a lot of people who offended who I offended anyway here's a recipe for pizza dough cinnamon in roles and they're a crowd pleaser and it was like a record scratch everyone was like what what the hell are you doing wild and there's also this notion of of like you don't look man if you're if there are allegations coming out for sexual misconduct you don't know what a crowd pleaser is it's why that that word that term just to be framing in that con in that in that piece of writing, it's perplexing that people were paid money to consult him on that writing.

1:00:18I assume that they hated him. Yeah. That's kind of my takeaway from all of that. And so I think we were all horrified collectively at the vehicle by which he expressed this non-apology. But the thing that caught me was I had made his pizza dough before. It was actually my go-to pizza dough recipe. And I bake a lot. And I'm like, well, wait a second. Pizza dough is not—it was a perfect metaphor because I was like, pizza dough is not a good vehicle to make cinnamon rolls, just like a newsletter is not a good vehicle for an apology. So I decided to make the cinnamon rolls because that was the one piece that no one had done.

1:01:05No one had taken that step. Yeah. Um, and I, I didn't pitch it anywhere for a couple of reasons. Yeah. One is that, you know, this is my, this is my big shameful confession. My pitches never get accepted. Like, you know, for whatever reason, I think my, my food writing is a little bit esoteric. Um, and I'm, I, I don't know. I think I'm a little bit outside of the fray of, of a lot of food where a lot of food journalists exist. So I've always felt like a bit of like the imposter syndrome is strong within me, very much so. And I also felt that perhaps we were starting to move away from it because the timeline is so fast for these sort of things.

1:01:56And so I figured the only place where I could really find a place to publish it was going to be on my own blog. And that's what I did. So you self-published this. It takes the internet by storm. Twitter is roaring at the time and Twitter takes off. You get a lot of looks at it. And so what's the arc of how that story just started to flow through media? Because it really did make, and it's terrific too, of course, but it also made a huge impression on media. And maybe you could say maybe changed. I mean, it won a Beard Award, changed that. And it was before Substack, right? It was, yeah. And it like maybe changed this idea that you had to have this like shiny masthead for your award-winning critical writing, etc.

1:02:46Yeah, I – wow. That is a – sorry, the imposter syndrome just came up. Oh, no. No, it's okay. But I'm like, wow, do you really think – whoa. I do. I do. So Helen Rosner was one of the first people to kind of get eyes on it. And Helen and I were mutuals on Twitter. And she pinged me and she was like, I think she just asked a couple questions or she retweeted it. And so that started to get attention that way. And then I noticed it just started getting all of these retweets. And then Pete Wells retweeted it. and he said something really beautiful about it, just that he was having trouble putting it into words and that this article did it.

1:03:36And I was like, oh, wow. So then it started to pick up. It got about 5 million views in a few days. Martha Stewart was retweeting it. Dan Savage retweeted it. all of these people across the food world. I was doing interviews with, I think I did an interview with Eater. I did one with The Kitchen. You know, I had people confidentially reach out to me talking about their experiences. Oh man, that's a heavy. It was heavy. It was heavy. And then sometime later, Naomi Tomke, who is a wonderful food writer out of Seattle. She's written for Taste. Early on in her first two years, she wrote a number of pieces.

1:04:26Oh, wonderful. Naomi's great. Yeah, she's excellent. She essentially bullied me into submitting the piece for a James Beard Award. As you should have. I had no, I honestly. It wasn't on your radar to submit. It was not on my radar to submit. And I literally did it like two hours before the deadline closed. I had no idea. And the other people who were nominated were, it was, you know, Naz Daravian and Catherine Dunn. So like The Atlantic and The New York Times. And then The Everywhere Est. So it was pretty funny. So, I mean, at this moment, we're this collective support of this piece and just like the retweets.

1:05:12It's, you know, acknowledging this incredible writing. It's also acknowledging that, like, this guy needs to go away. This guy. Yeah. Like, this was not acceptable. And really, he tried to come back a few other times. He really did. But it is not happening. And I think that this was I think Bourdain was still with us at this point. And he kind of told, I think there was some reporting that Bourdain had told him, man, just take your money and go. Like, go enjoy your life, but do not try and reenter the culinary world. And eventually, I think Batali sold off his steak in Italy. Yep. And he settled.

1:05:52Yeah, he settled quite a few of the civil cases. But I think he's trying to come back now. Is my understanding. Do you want to write something? I'm just saying, like, it feels like you have more to say about this guy. Well, here's my fundamental belief. I think that, you know, we talk about cancel culture a lot. And frankly, first of all, I think that's a stupid phrase because it's consequences. That's all that we're fundamentally talking about. And I think that what we're proving is that this cancel culture concept doesn't exist. because all of these guys come back, every single one of them, right?

1:06:35They all come back. And, you know, there is this conversation about, well, you know, they should be like, people deserve a second chance. And I'm like, well, that might be true, but I think that you need to, we need to create a path back perhaps, maybe. I don't know. It depends on the person and what they've done. But we need to talk about and agree upon what that path looks like and what you need to do to come back. And I don't know if just enough time has passed where you can say, oh, you know, like, I think enough people have forgotten. And so I'm coming back. That's not it. Yeah, that is not.

1:07:13And here's the meatball recipe. Yeah. Like, what the hell? Yeah, I know. I hate that term, too. And I agree with you. You know, I think about intention to when it terms terms of quote unquote cancel culture will cancel that term but i mean do you look at intention so versus i mean mario batali clearly had horrible intention with his acts but other people who maybe fell into the cancel bucket quote unquote maybe had different intentions how do you think about well i don't i don't know i'm trying to think of an example there of like i mean like Louis C.K. clearly, I don't think his intentions were good.

1:07:53No, exactly. Again, I don't know. I really, I don't want to paint a broad brush, but I think that what more often happens is that we don't hold people who should be held accountable for what they've done rather than the opposite. I don't think that people who, you know, are like had good intentions, but whoops, I got swept up in this and now I'm getting canceled. I don't think that that happens. Like that's I would be shocked. Fair. Absolutely. Your book's been out for a year and now we're in paperback. And if you can't take the heat, you got to check it out. What are you working on right now?

1:08:38Writing wise, I was like, I'm curious. I do want to explore. This is pie in the sky. Let's go. Okay. You're at Penguin Random House. I'm at Penguin Random House. This is where the ideas kind of sometimes happen. I do want to explore something about the nature of grief and food and grief. And I am saying this. I am fresh off of I was at a funeral less than a week ago. My uncle. Oh, thank you. My uncle just passed away. But I was thinking about all of the ways that food kind of played a role. So I do think that there's something interesting to talk about with grief. And I'm not sure what that is.

1:09:21I haven't really locked in on that. But right now, what I've been working on, and I think I told you a bit about this, is I have found myself back to my roots of being in the toy and game world. So I am the lead writer of a video game that I am developing with my husband where the protagonist is a female chef. That's incredible. OK, so we don't want to spoil a good surprise. So when it comes out, will you come back and tell me all about it? I would love to. And if people want, can I plug it a little bit? Well, no, but I want to absolutely. I'm like, tell me everything. Truly. Absolutely. I don't want to I don't want to like pressure you into telling the story.

1:10:06I would love to come back and talk to you. I mean, I have a million questions about that. Let's go there. Yeah. Okay. But so first of all, if you want to follow along, the studio's name is Snack Bar Studio, singular. So you can go to snackbarstudio.com and take a look at what we're doing. But essentially, it is a magical version of Italy. And you live in an isolated town that you believe is the last surviving outpost after a magical cataclysm. And there is a kind of tyrannical ruler over this town. And he, I swear I wrote this before the current political situation. But he's got some strong fascist tendencies.

1:10:55And he controls the goods that come into the town. and they are very expensive. So he's like the big bad? He is the big bad. And so your aunt was leaving the town, which is against the rules. She was going into the forbidden wilds where there are dangerous plants and animals and she was collecting and foraging and bringing things back to run your restaurant. Well, she's gotten arrested. And so now you need to take upon her mantle of illegal foraging to try and keep the restaurant afloat and maybe also get her out of prison. But as you are doing all of this and you're cooking, you're uncovering all of these stories and you're bringing the people of the town together to, I don't know, maybe fight for chism.

1:11:46Revolt, yeah, against the big bad. So you're creating allies and you're collecting allies. And how does the actual cooking play out in the game? That's actually something that we are having a lot of fun trying to puzzle out. So we're about 18 months out. And so we've been having the discussion of, do we want the cooking element to be about food, like the actual cooking part? Do we want it to be relational? So a client comes in and it's what you serve them and how they feel. And it's that emotional response. So we're really trying to hone in on that. And that has been the hardest part, to turn this relationship with food into something tangible in a video game.

1:12:42No, I mean, clearly you have to make that important choice. And do you have fun writing the non-playable characters? I've been having, oh my goodness. I love the idea of the non-playable characters. especially like non-playable characters in life now that it's like we can look at non-playable characters everywhere now oh absolutely like um i don't know something that my husband says all the time that i fight with him is he goes he goes oh i'm the npc i'm like you are not you are not but i one thing that it gets a little meta is you know i've got all of these npcs and then you start to talk to them and they actually have these beautiful stories.

1:13:22And it's this idea of, you know, we forget that everyone has this story, that everyone has their own really powerful narrative. And it's like, oh, yeah, you just think they're the person standing next to you in line to get a coffee. I love this. And so in 18 months, it comes out. Is it like on Steam? Is it like out? It's going to be on Steam. It's going to be on Switch. It's going to be on hopefully a couple of different platforms. But, you know, we're a little independent studio. So we are hustling and there's five of us. And yeah, we're kind of we're in Romania, Italy, the Canary Islands and the U.S.

1:14:03And I think Spain right now. There's only a couple of us. Yeah, your team's all over. You're on the Zooms. I mean, does it like, I don't know this world. I'm so curious. Neither do I really. It's brand new. The video game aspect is brand new to me. Yeah. Whose idea was it? What was, how'd this start? So Rand, my husband, had been wanting to do it for a long time. Yeah. He was super passionate about wanting to do a video game. And he was like, well, you know what? Like maybe when my company, if my company ever sells, like, you know, He had this company that he had left several years ago. And he's like, well, if it ever does well, if it ever sells, if something ever comes of it.

1:14:43And I was like, yeah, you know what? Don't wait for the what if. Don't do it. Because honestly, if you want to take a big swing, go for it. And this was during COVID. And he reached out to a gentleman named Nicholas Kraj, who worked on the Assassin's Creed games. And he's kind of a luminary in the industry. I started talking to Nicholas, and it started that Nicholas was a contractor and advisor, and now he's a co-founder of this studio with us. So slowly it kind of manifested that way. But it was very much a pie in the sky, and I was like, yeah, don't wait. Very cool. Are you following The Last of Us?

1:15:26Did you play the game? I haven't. I have not played the game or watched it. So zombies are my number one fictional fear. Oh, well, this is not for you. Yeah, but Pedro Pascal is kind of my number one fictional boyfriend. So it's very, yeah, it's very confusing. I really want to watch. Well, I hope that's an example of a video game going to the small screen. I feel like this, just the brief bits you told me about it, sounds like it'd be a cool TV show. I agree. If anyone would like to option it. Yeah, exactly. Out there. Well, I want to talk a little bit about Seattle. where you live. Yeah. I love your city.

1:16:06I got to go twice last year and I didn't spend much time there. Next time call. I will now that we know each other. I'd love to. I mean, I have my favorites like just from my own like St. Brett. Oh my God. Love that place. It's amazing. And I believe they just were nominated for a beard award. They were absolutely. I mean, Hamdi, Watson's Corner. Watson's Corner closed. Oh no. Yeah. We're doing the updates here. Yeah. Oh man. Oh, and sorry. I'm just like going, I'm riffing because I just want to shout my place in Seattle. Mean sandwich. I've never. You know what? I've never been. Fucking so good.

1:16:39Is it? Yeah. Yeah. They've got two locations. And so I need to go. So good. Anyways, that's my like brief tourist take. I'd love to get your takes on your city scene and some restaurants you love. So I recently went to Sofon. S-O-P-H-O-N. It's on Finney Ridge and it's a Cambodian restaurant. And it was phenomenal. I went with my cousin and he was like, here's what I love. He said, it's all new to me. He said everything was new to me. And he adored it. So that was really big on my radar. One place I went to recently was the Garrison. It's in Ballard. And it's just kind of beautiful, northwest, a lot of seafood.

1:17:27And kind of calls back to, Ballard is our old fishing town. And so it really calls back to that and kind of has some Scandinavian influences. And I loved it. My husband is on the lookout for the best spicy chicken sandwich in Seattle. That's a great quest. It's a wonderful quest. It's a great quest. I feel Mean probably does a good one. We're going to have to check it out. You've got to check it out. I just love it. I know it's like not the newest place, but every time I've been there, I've been there. Yeah. No, I'm going to because right now I think our top one is Cook's Country Chicken. Okay.

1:18:06Yeah. I might have said that right. It might be Country Cook's Chicken. Yeah. There is some permutation, but I believe it's Cook's Country Chicken and they do an excellent fried chicken sandwich. I love it. It's a great food city. It is. Here's the thing. It's a very expensive city. It will make your heart stop. Yeah. Yeah. So that's and I think, unfortunately, like we see a lot of great places closed down because it's so pricey to keep a restaurant going. Yeah. I think that's a New York thing, too. Is it? Yeah. I believe it. It's challenging right now to keep restaurants open. We're pulling for everyone.

1:18:45Yeah, that's the thing. Keep plates on, man. And I think when you see a place that you love, even if you've been there a thousand times, I think you just have to keep going back. Yeah. Great advice. Become a regular if you like the place because it might not always be there. Right. You do. And I also think that we fall in love with the new so quickly. I know. It's the problem, right? We chase the new. Hamdi. Have you heard of Hamdi? I haven't. It's Turkish. It's amazing. Oh, no. I have heard of it. It's so good. I have heard of it. Yeah. It's really good. Yeah, people have been talking about it.

1:19:21Yeah. But then I'm like, but I have to go to all the other places. All the other places. Yeah. Well, this has been such a great chat. I've had such a good time. On This Is Taste, we ask guests about their discerning taste. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid fire, fast and furious. Oh, God. Taste check. Are you ready? No, I'm not. You're going to do it. Okay. I have confidence. Okay. The best fruit? Cherimoya. Oh, tell me about it. I love that choice. I think it's such a different combination of things. It's creamy. It's sweet. It's a little tart. You don't get it all the time. The worst vegetable.

1:19:56Oh, those little carrots that come in a bag that are always wet and weirdly, like, shaved. It's a very good call. I always wonder how many miles has that wetness traveled? Yeah. Is that, like, coming from local or is that, like, from, like, did it need a passport? And then there's water in the bottom of the bag. Yeah. Is that, like, passport required water? I don't know. Yeah. Good call. Good one. That one hasn't come up. The new one. The best dessert. Oh, heavens. I'm going to go real basic. I think carrot cake. You are the best. Really? That's my number one. Really? I love carrot cake. Cool.

1:20:36Go to Hani's in New York, bakery downtown, brand new H-A-N-I-S. We've talked about a lot on the show. Their carrot cake is phenomenal and it's an incredible bakery. Okay. Just down in the East Village. I have a question. Does it have pineapple in it? Nope. Good. That's it. That's no pineapple. Yeah, I don't like that choice either. I don't think it's necessary. I mean, I don't think it has pineapple, at least from my experience with it a few days ago, no pineapple. Yeah. It's also weird that I said those carrots were the trash vegetable and yet carrots are. The beauty of food. Isn't that incredible?

1:21:07It's the beauty of cooking right there. Raw materials sometimes need to be changed. They do. And that's a great. We can all transform ourselves, friends. Your favorite American fast food chain. Oh. Oh, my God. Oh, God, I haven't had fast food. If you're not into it, you can just be like, I don't eat fast food. No, you know what? I will push over somebody's grandmother for a Dairy Queen butterscotch dip cone. Sick. Great choice. Thank you. It's a great choice. Thank you. Your favorite cookbook of all time. I told you I'm a baker and not much of a home cook. Yeah. Or I don't use cookbooks for home cooking.

1:21:47So I have to say Sarah Kiefer's 100 Cookies. Oh, yeah, that's a good one. It's excellent. I remember when that came out. Yeah, that's a good one. It is. It's excellent. Do you have a favorite recent cookbook discovery? Well, actually, can I tell you my favorite cookbook story? Yeah, sure. So my grandmother-in-law passed away a few years ago. My grandfather-in-law is still kicking at 97. Nice. So these are my husband's paternal grandparents. But Pauline never cooked. The joke was, what's she making for dinner? And the answer is reservations. So just picture old, old school New York, glamorous Jewish woman.

1:22:27And Pauline had Paula Peck's The Joy of Baking on her shelf. And I said, Pauline, why do you have the joy of baking on your shelf? You don't bake. And she laughed. She goes, ha. And she goes, see, she just asked why I have that cookbook on my shelf. And she never answered my question. And 20 years later, she died. And she never answered the question. But in the interim, she mailed me the book. Oh, that's good. And I have it on my shelf and I love it because it's full of these like 1950s and 60s recipes and they spell cookie with a Y. Oh, my goodness. I didn't know that had a history there. Oh, the Y.

1:23:13It's great. Bring back that spelling. I love that story. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for making the time. A cuisine you'd like to learn more about? I think Peruvian because you've got the chalfa, which is the Chinese influence. You've got the Japanese influence. You've got the ceviche. You've got the spice. It's such a confluence of flavors. And then you've got the indigenous influence. So you've got the the guinea pig. You've got like, you know, 200 different kinds of potatoes. Yeah, it's incredible. What a great call. Last one, your favorite sandwich. I do not eat sandwiches. OK, let's go.

1:23:52Like none. Like none. No, I eat about two sandwiches a year. Maybe. Why? Because I feel that the sandwich is usually ill-composed and structurally problematic. Wow. However, I recently had one of the best sandwiches of my life. And for someone who doesn't eat sandwiches, this is significant. And it was at a restaurant called, I will mispronounce it, B-I-L-I-L-I in Paris. Okay. And they, I think it's Bilili. Bilili is what I'm thinking. Yep. And they make a pastrami sandwich, which, again, I don't even like pastrami. And it was perfectly composed. It did not lose structural integrity, which is key to me.

1:24:37You're a structure person. I am. The loose meat falling out is the good for you. If it loses structural integrity, I don't care if I've taken one bite. I put it down, I'm done. Someone else has to take it because I will not eat it. And I think if parts of it get soggy, I'm—ugh, no. Most sandwiches are trash. I am really happy to hear that you found a sandwich that isn't trash. Yeah. I've upset you now and I'm cool with it because I've given you something to think about. But I am sorry for— I've just never met someone who doesn't like sandwiches and it makes sense you haven't been to Mean Sandwich because you don't like the category.

1:25:12I mean, it is hard for me. So I will say if a sandwich is structurally strong, even if the sandwich is meh, I'm cool with it. So you really want a firm, like a coherent structure. There can't be overlapping of borders. Right. So the French, the French like baguette sandwich with the butter and the cornichon and the Dijon and then like the dried kind of ham inside and just a little bit of cheese. That works for me. What about like a soft, like a Japanese style convenience store? Absolutely not. So it needs to be. That is, you've caused me. That's a nightmare for you. That is the soft bread that compresses and smooshes into the filling.

1:25:59Yeah. And those, and look, they're beautiful. I will say that. Yeah, sure. The spongy bread with like the cream. So like PB &J never was your thing. I think I have eaten possibly one PB &J in my life. I'm wondering if, have you written about this idea? Yeah. No, that the sandwich is imperfect and it's overrated. Let's talk about taste. I will respond to your pitch. Really? Well, now that we know each other, we can just talk to the phone. I will say I do like a grilled cheese. Okay. Yeah, because usually that gets crisp, so it's got structural integrity. This is like, I feel like. I think I've broken you.

1:26:41I think I've broke your brain. So I think you just need structure in your sandwiches. You need like something that isn't mushy. Like you're anti-mushy. I'm very anti-mushy. Yeah. But I'll eat like a trifle. Like I'm okay with some mushy desserts. So like it needs to be in the dessert category to be mushy and work. Yeah. Like I can have a pudding. That's okay. But like mushy. So like Thanksgiving when it comes to the stuffing. No, stuffing's okay. Oh. Figure this one out. I'm unpacking this. Right. But it's in your hand. and then parts of it start to get mushy because they've made contact with a condiment that is now soaked through, or a tomato that is soaked.

1:27:22You just don't like the liquid interrupting the bread and structure. Right. Like unintentionally. Right. Right. I think that that is a deep problem. We have something here, Geraldine. This has been so much fun. Thank you so much for joining us. This is it.

1:27:43This is Taste is hosted and produced by Matt Rodbard and me, Eliza Abarbanil. The show is edited by lead producer Clayton Gumbert and supervised by Pat Stango, director of media production and development at Penguin Random House. Thanks to Shalia Harris and the production team at Penguin Random House. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Logo and guest illustrations by Ellie Skrzat. Visit Taste online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep updated on all cool things in the world of taste.

From the publisher

Ali Domrongchai is a writer, recipe developer, and baker in Brooklyn. She’s passionate about researching and uplifting Thai culinary traditions, from teaching luk chup workshops to popping up with pandan lemongrass mochi cake and other treats at restaurants around the city. It’s so fun having Ali on the show to talk about the exciting state of Thai food in NYC, including her upcoming Thai Takeover at New York’s Museum of Food and Drink on May 29.
Also on the show we have a great conversation with Geraldine DeRuiter, author of a terrific essay collection, If You Can't Take the Heat: Tales of Food, Feminism, and Fury. We talk about Mario Batali’s cinnamon rolls, writing food into video games, and her truly unique way of writing about food and culture.
Do you enjoy This Is TASTE? Drop us a review on Apple, or star us on Spotify. We’d love to hear from you.

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