684: Inside @cabagges.world with Anna Archibald and Kevin Serai

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0:31There have been times when we have gatekept and I think that usually has more to do with you know we have quite a few like good friends in Tokyo that we see when we're there and so one of them will bring us to a spot that's like kind of precious to them like their local spot and so I think it's super important to like respect that when a place has its own kind of ecosystem of locals already. This is Taste. I'm your host, Eliza Barbinell. Anna Archibald and Kevin Sarai are the couple behind Cabbage's World, an online platform where they share recipes, travel guides, and more lifestyle inspiration.

1:09Their respective backgrounds in graphic design and marketing helped turn a few viral home cooking videos into a career. And today on the show, we go deep on their backgrounds and perspective on creating cooking content, plus what's inspiring them today. Anna Archibald and Kevin Sarai, aka Cabbage's World, this is Taze. Thank you for coming on the podcast. Thank you for having us. Thank you so much. We're excited. Do you guys respond to cabbages if people just kind of shout that at you? Totally. Yeah. On the street all the time. How does that feel? It's fine. Yeah. Yeah, I like it. It's funny. I mean, hearing that, like hearing someone shout that like in the street, it's funny.

1:49Yeah, responding to a vegetable is maybe like not something you would have initially expected a couple years ago. Yeah, I mean, I guess at least then you know exactly where they know you from, you know. But yeah, we'll get comments that are like, oh, I saw Mr. Cabbages at the coffee shop on my street or, you know, whatever it is. That's really cute, honestly. I love that. I'm really excited to kind of dive deep into your careers, the kind of work that you do together. But I want to start with just a little bit of background into who you both are. I'm wondering if you could each tell me an early food memory you have from growing up that you think was somehow impactful for you.

2:24Sure. I guess I can go first. I think one of my most distinct food memories from growing up is we both grew up in Hawaii. We both grew up half Japanese, which is quite common there. And I think Japanese people have been in Hawaii for so long that they have sort of their own kind of like subculture there. One of my earliest food memories is how we spend New Year's Day always with my mom's side of the family. My grandma is 93 now, but that's the one day of the year where she does all of the cooking. And for Japanese people, New Year's Day has a lot of specific foods that you prepare and eat together on that day.

3:12And so I think in terms of like my connection to being Japanese, that memory is like very prominent for me. And I think my interest in Japanese food as well, which is like a lot of what we do. Was there like a most iconic dish that she puts on the table? There's a few. I think maybe the one people all kind of collectively eat the most is called ozoni. It's like a soup that you eat after the New Year begins. It has like a mochi inside. And people do it a lot of different ways. It's one of those things that like every family has their own kind of recipe and way of doing it. But hers is a broth made with like clams.

3:54There's like some fish cake and some greens in there. Yeah. Sounds really good. Kevin, what's your memory? I mean, I have a lot of similar memories to that. like you know in new year's eve like cooking with my with my grandma and that being like a very sensual kind of like food moment for us and so we kind of still kind of keep that tradition together today um but honestly i feel like when i was a kid i didn't really think that much about like the making of food you know it was more just like it just kind of like showed up for me and i think that was like the best part of being a kid, like, you know, coming home and my grandma just having like a table set and just like eating whatever was on there.

4:38And, and that was like, I mean, so amazing. Um, but I think like when I really started to like, think about making food or like, or like food for myself was, um, like in college and that's when, you know, the first time I was away from home and like really missing like the food from Hawaii. And fortunately, I was like living with a good friend of mine who also was from Hawaii. And so we kind of started figuring out how to cook together a little bit and like trying to like recreate those dishes for ourselves in our dorm room. So we'd go to like Costco or Mitsuha is like a big Asian market in L.A.

5:25where I went to school. And so we'd go to those markets and kind of come home and try to like recreate, you know, dishes from home. That was like so much like fun for us. And I think kind of where I started really enjoying cooking. Yeah, I feel like that is such a classic way. I also went to college and had to figure out how to make the things that I used to kind of take for granted. It is such an interesting moment of exploration. And I think it's interesting now to remember that because you two have made a career out of sharing recipes online with people. I wonder if you remember a moment when you realized that people were drawn to the kind of cooking that you were doing at home or maybe even how you started sharing kind of cooking content online in the first place.

6:10I mean, we really just started posting things on a whim, you know, with no expectations or thinking that anyone would see anything that we were posting.

6:24So, I mean, I guess I can tell a funny story of like when one of like our first viral videos started becoming viral. Yeah. Well, and at the time, I think, yeah, TikTok was pretty new. I feel like even most of our close friends weren't on TikTok, really. You know, it was like it felt like a pretty anonymous platform at the time. And it was like, you know, you were just kind of posting into like a void. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I guess the first time we became aware that people were into it was when we posted this video of the milfoy nabe, which is like layers of cabbage and pork in a dunabe.

7:02You know, it's like simmering in a broth. And that really took off for us. And, yeah, we were out that night in Greenpoint. And this is probably, like, late. 2021. Yeah. I think. And so we were out with friends. We, like, had eaten some mushrooms. And so it was, like, really. We were dancing. We were dancing, yeah. It was, like, really late at night at this point, right? It was, like, maybe, like, 2 a.m. Yeah. And we were just, like, we, like, left the bar, the club that we were at. We were just, like, kind of walking around the neighborhood. And then, you know, we had posted that video like earlier that day, I think.

7:42And then so we were just like, I think Anna just like pulled out her phone and was like checking her notifications and that video just started like popping off. And we were like at that point like tripping on mushrooms. Yeah, but that was the first time that we were, I guess, aware that, you know, we were people were really into our content, I guess. That was like the first like video, I guess. That's such a disorienting way to understand that. And I think like maybe in 2021, like TikTok felt like a different platform than it is now. But there is this kind of element of like, I guess you choose to post, but then there's no control over really algorithm or who's going to see it.

8:21And then you find yourself, I don't know, sitting in a dark room being on a podcast four years later. It's kind of surreal to think about in that kind of way. Yeah, I mean, I guess from there, it was really, I think, when we were dating, that was like sort of more newly in our relationship. And so cooking together, just like on weeknights, or whatever it is, like finding, you know, a recipe wanted to do that was sort of just a way to spend time together, like throughout the week. And so, you know, making videos really just came out of that. It was always just like, oh, we're cooking dinner. you know the the way the videos were put together in the beginning was very you know it was just a couple shots like thrown together it wasn't nearly as as thorough obviously as we kind of capture things now but yeah I think just sharing that and I think I think something we did also start to realize was that you know as a whole recipe content was new so I think there was like novelty there like watching recipe videos but also the dynamic of kind of doing it together and this sort of second person's POV and the kind of passing back and forth, you know, just the, I guess, that awareness that, you know, you're not just doing, like, a first-person cooking, but there's sort of, like, this interaction, like, happening.

9:41And I think that's something that people were really into, and that kind of made us different at the time. Yeah, that's an interesting observation. I feel like Haley and Chuck are the only other couple I can think of off the top of my head that post content of them cooking together, but they're often like both in the frame, you know, on like their side account. Two people cooking, whatever that one's called. They're both together and you guys are kind of passing it back and forth. And I think as the viewer, I've always been curious about how much of that is organic and or how much of that is like, oh, Anna, you haven't been in the shot.

10:14Like you take over this task. I think most of it is organic. I think we we've always tried to I mean I guess it was it was very much born out of purely how we were actually cooking you know what I mean it's like oh your hands are free you take a clip and that is actually like a much more efficient way to make a video than being by yourself setting up a tripod setting up the shot you know it's just like oh you grab the phone okay now you grab it and so that was very organic obviously like we do think about like those details of like you know um we you know and we now have like a we do kind of like a secondary camera for like some b-roll and whatever to kind of like give some atmosphere um so of course like some of it gets planned but i would say for the most part it's it's really just practical kind of yeah yeah i imagine also your kind of professional backgrounds come into play a little bit i know like anna you're a graphic designer and kevin you have a marketing background right more in like the fashion kind of brand side do you guys have do you remember having a moment when you sat down and decided to treat the videos you were making like more of a brand or a business I don't think there was like one moment I think it just kind of evolved into that just naturally given our backgrounds um I think yeah like slowly we started incorporating um you know yeah small bits of what we were good at or like you know things that we knew how to do into our our brand and so obviously Anna being a graphic designer and then I also like you know had like a t-shirt brand years ago like the merch for example that was like kind of like a natural thing that we we like we're always kind of interested in doing because we just like making those types of items and products So as like cabbages became a thing, we were like, it would be so fun to make merch that's kind of based around the food that we love, you know.

12:15And so that was really just purely born out of like the joy of making those things. And I think a lot of those different aspects of the brand per se, like kind of pretty organically evolved, I guess. Yeah. Do you feel like you get feedback from the people who follow you about what things they want to buy or what they want to see from you? And how much do you kind of use that as a guide versus just kind of your own desires or conversations? I think like the number one thing people want from us is like a cookbook or like something that has our recipes in it. I mean, we publish our recipes on our website for free.

12:58And so then we're always like, you know, you can just go to our website. But I think people that maybe don't know us are like, oh, do you guys have a cookbook that I can buy? Or people that do know us that have seen, you know, the zine that we put out a year ago. They're always asking us if we're ever going to restock that. And so I think that that feels like the number one thing that people want from us outside of anything else, right? Yeah, I guess if we're talking about more about the merch specifically with the merch, I think we really just try to anticipate what is like fun and exciting and what we're excited about making.

13:44I think we don't generally get like requests or anything like that. But it's just like, you know, each time we put out new stuff, using that feedback and seeing what was like successful, I guess. yeah I guess if someone's listening and they haven't seen the merch before like the most iconic one to me is the reusable bag that looks like a cabbage and I have one and especially when you have it stuffed full of stuff and you tie it shut like it looks like you're carrying a giant cabbage around it's really cute and I actually was in Taiwan at an art bookstore and I had someone come up to me and point at my bag and be like oh cabbages I mean I guess that makes sense I feel like you guys cook a lot of Asian food, obviously.

14:26And I think it seems like a good amount of your audience is interested in that. But to be like truly on the other side of the world and have somebody noticing the tote bag and coming to talk to me about it, I felt like that was a really special moment. Yeah, that's so cool. Yeah, it's really cool. It's like amazing to see like people so far away from us like using our stuff. And yeah, I think we just try to think about stuff that is easy to understand. There's like a whimsical element. There's something kind of like silly and just fun to use. Yeah. Yeah. I think the sense of joy seems to be like a real guiding factor.

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17:54The 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-star 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. I was curious how organized you guys are when it comes to just the content you're putting out, the recipes maybe specifically, do you kind of map out an editorial calendar?

18:39Is it more organic based on just how you're naturally cooking at home? It's both, I guess. Yeah, there are definitely sometimes when we need to be more organized, when we're traveling or we have deadlines for, you know, videos that we're working on with brands. But I think like our organic content of us just like putting out recipe content and other kind of like more lifestyle videos is pretty organic to how we live, I think. We're not really, I mean, I think we try to plan to cook something at least a couple times per week. We don't plan that much. Yeah. But we're definitely not like looking ahead, you know, like into next month and being like, Like, okay, we need to make this dish.

19:27You're not going to drop like a Thanksgiving recipe video? No, no, no. Yeah, we actually aren't. I feel like, yes, obviously seasonality I feel like drives a lot of people who do what we do. And we like somewhat adhere to that. But, yeah, a lot of our stuff is like more spur of the moment, more last minute. I think we keep like a running list of ideas all the time, just like a notes app. so we're always writing down you know oh it would be cool to like riff on this or like what if you you know we made this again but we did it this way this time you know and so we've always got like a running list of ideas and then I think on a given week we're kind of figuring out what we can like slot in and you know or what we can get maybe produce wise or ingredient wise or what makes sense yeah yeah I feel like um I don't know simple or approachable like those are words that I think sometimes can be charged in food conversations.

20:21But I do think that whenever I see a video or a recipe from you guys, I probably have most of the ingredients already, and it doesn't seem like it's going to be such an effort. It feels like it's something that you can see and then crave and then make in a really short turnaround, which I think is a good strategy for the way that people kind of consume cooking content these days. That's something like we are really intentional about. We know kind of who our audience is and how they live, and sort of a lot of them are on the go. Some of them maybe are like students, maybe they're newer to cooking or they're on a budget.

20:53And I think we try to make something for everyone in those constraints. And we, you know, that's just also like how we kind of cook and live as well. But we try to keep it. Yeah, super approachable. There's like something for everyone, I think. Yeah. I'm curious, just as Cabbage has grown and you also have grown as people, you started out doing cooking recipe content, but now there's kind of travel as an angle. There's just kind of your life in New York. Like, how do you kind of think of the balance of the types of content? And like, what are you kind of drawn and interested in doing these days?

21:29I think recipe content is always going to be like the core of what we do, I think. And I think that always will kind of support everything else. I think food is always going to be like our great connector between all the different stuff that we're doing. But I think over time, we've learned that people are kind of interested in seeing more of like the lifestyle around it, you know, like I think going back to talking about how we were making the videos and showing that they're even showing that there's two of us and it's like more of an activity than just a, you know, step by step. I think we kind of realized over time that people are interested in seeing the world of Cabbage's World, you know, not just the food.

22:14And so, yeah, expanding that into just like how we like to travel, what we like to do at home, those kind of things. And it's like really fun for us, I think, to like have other ways to like share that aren't always just like pumping out recipes. Yeah, I feel like you both have such a distinct sense of taste that really kind of permeates all of the things that you do. And also the way that people naturally cook as you travel, you eat something somewhere, you get inspired by that. It informs what you cook at home. So I feel like there's a very kind of clear through line in that way. Yeah, totally.

22:48That's like our favorite, I think. I think honestly, like when we travel, that's probably if we're going to make a video, it's going to be about somewhere that we're going to eat. That's like one of our favorite videos to make is like a really fun restaurant that we loved and documenting that meal. I'm curious, like as your platform has grown, especially when you're going to smaller places or, you know, Japan has become like such a big travel destination, obviously. Do you ever think about like gatekeeping a spot or like the impact of like showing? Have you shown something and then gone back to it since?

23:24And like, has it felt different at all? Totally. I mean, we definitely think about gatekeeping. I guess I would say a lot of the places that we go to honestly aren't built for like virality. And by that, I kind of mean they might not be like visually so appealing, so flashy, you know, whatever it is that draws people in through a screen. but if we're sharing it it usually means like we had a great meal here we had a great experience it it might be like quite simple and humble and so if you go try it you'll probably enjoy it but it's not necessarily going to like garner a huge amount of like viral attention I guess and I think there have been times when we have gate kept and I think that usually has more to do with, you know, we have quite a few like good friends in Tokyo that we see when we're there.

24:23And so sometimes they, one of them will bring us to a spot that's like kind of precious to them, like their local spot. And so I think it's super important to like respect that when a place has its own kind of ecosystem of locals already and, you know, is maybe not built for foreigners or like tourists to show up there. I think, you know, I think that's usually pretty easy for us to like discern and and know you know what to sort of keep more sacred yeah I feel like it does seem like there's a lot of intentionality and care and what you do share and I think um I don't mention that to be like cabbages ruined a spot or anything because I'm sure that hasn't happened but I think there's been such a culture of just like people automatically posting wherever they are and like not necessarily getting permission or even thinking about it but um just because you guys do have this as part of your work it seems like it must be a consideration yeah I think it's something that you're always thinking about i think especially when we're back home like we're very sensitive to sharing places when we're back in hawaii because i think i think it can be difficult sometimes with tourism there and like driving people to a local spot that you don't want everyone to know about especially not even food but like a beach for example like you know there are so many you know spots that we go to when we're home that it's like we're not we're gonna of like keep this for ourselves kind of or for the community there um and so i think especially there we kind of know where we can know where to pick and choose like where to share yeah i was thinking about how being from hawaii must give you an interesting perspective in terms of like the fantasy that people have about the places that they travel to versus like the reality of actually living there so it's interesting that you mentioned that yeah totally yeah and i think um yeah I think it's like a great example for you know just talking about gatekeeping and all other places too but a lot of the places we share it's like there are so many places that we genuinely we genuinely love them we genuinely would recommend them to any close friends who are visiting for the first time and be like you have to try this and everyone knows about them you know what I mean it's like we're not we're not like blowing up a spot it's just like you know these are real recommendations and yeah you know they're for everyone yeah sometimes good things are popular also like i tell everyone to go to russ and daughters when they visit new york and that's been you know the spot for over 100 years and there's plenty of tourists there but it also is a place that i go when i'm nearby yeah yeah there's so many places like that in hawaii that we love you know that tourists also are fully know about um popular for a reason yeah yeah yeah exactly i'm curious also how you think about like brand partnerships do you have any criteria that you consider when you're deciding whether or not to take one on?

27:07I think, yeah, for sure. I mean, I think, I think we've been really lucky to be able to like work with a lot of brands that we naturally, we already love. I mean, there are so many brands that like, you know, we, we use every day in our kitchen that like we've been fortunate to like to work with. So, so I mean, in regards to like food, something that we can back, you know? Yeah. I mean, I think, I think we're always thinking about, does this make sense in our lifestyle? Is it already a part of our life? Would it make sense in our life? And would it make sense in like the lifestyle of the people who follow us?

27:43And, you know, a lot of that comes down to the same things we're considering with recipes themselves, which is like affordability, accessibility you know keeping things like approachable yeah yeah like just making sure it fits totally yeah yeah i mean sometimes it leads to other kinds of collabs like i saw this week that you guys did something with zoran mamdani in advance of the election but i feel like every major if you were an influencer and you didn't get asked by zoran's campaign to do something i feel like that must be crazy because he's been on a tear but i was curious how that came about and what that was like if you are up for talking about it yeah he has been on a tear um but yeah we were super lucky to just get like a couple minutes with him did his team just like dm you guys yeah it was super last minute his um one someone from his campaign just dm'd us and was like hey can you be at the h mart in sunnyside queens in 45 minutes you're kidding yeah and we luckily we were already out we were like dressed um and we were like all right call the uber yeah Yeah, we debated for 10 minutes and then we were like, we have to go.

28:48Yeah, obviously. What was that like to record with him in a grocery store? It was super cool. I mean, on the way there, so obviously we didn't have any time to prepare. We were in the cab being like, what are we going to ask? What are we going to do? What are we going to do? And I mean, ultimately, we just were like, this is important to talk about right now. Let's get some pictures with him, chat with him. And I think this would be a really great way to like remind our followers to vote and, you know, pay attention to this. So, but yeah, it was pretty cool. I mean, the moment he walked in, we're in the food court at HMAR in Sunnyside.

29:26And the moment he walked in, I mean, people were like so excited to see him. You know, workers, like people eating lunch, older people shopping. and that was like honestly really kind of like amazing to see just like the energy and the excitement around him yeah from like all types of people yeah he's a professional too i mean like recording with him he is just so on it you know like we were like so flustered like like what are we at what are we gonna ask him like we don't we don't know what to do and he's just like right and of course everyone is watching you yeah it's like you know his whole posse everyone in the stores watching yeah yeah but what did you ask him we asked him what what was like what his favorite like on the road was a few like funny questions we also were the first people to talk to him and he was like getting he had like a lot of like interview reporters around him and so we were like let's just like ask a few kind of like light-hearted questions and then ask him to you know put out a reminder about voting yeah so yeah we asked him about if he has any like snacks that He likes to keep with him on the campaign trail.

30:31He wasn't really a snack. He said, what did he say? I eat biryani. He said flavored cardamom seeds. And then he said, I just eat a lot of biryani. Yeah, that was so funny. He doesn't have time for snacks. He's got to satiate. He hasn't even been sleeping. I don't think so. I don't think so. I'm worried about him. I was out last weekend when he was going to all of the clubs. And I was furious that I missed him. I was like, you spent to like seven clubs and I was at none of them. We actually got sent the schedule for that. And yeah, it was like, we don't have the energy for this club bus club. Nana tip me off next time.

31:09Yeah. I'm sorry. It's like, um, I don't even know. They said I couldn't say, but yeah. Okay. That's pretty cool. That's fair. We're protecting his schedule for the better good. Yeah. Gotta keep them safe. Yeah. That must've been a kind of surreal moment to be able to like have access to somebody in that kind of way who's like, you know, political career, you support and have the opportunity to kind of share it with people as well. Yeah. I mean, it was super cool. And he was extremely generous, I think, with like everyone who came up to him, you know, even just people who wanted a quick photo or to share something with him.