760: Sheldon Simeon’s Ohana State of Mind

27:51Yeah, I feel the same. Your favorite season for cooking? Winter, spring, summer, fall. I live in a place that has every single season. Yeah. But I would have to say persimmon season in Hawaii. That is always a treat when that comes around. And that's kind of like early fall. Early fall. Early fall. What do you like to make with the persimmon? Oh, we like to, I like to just dry them up and toss them with a lihimui powder, which is like a preserved powder. But I also like like the under under ripened one and stir frying it with pork. Whoa. Yeah, it's something. I love that little tart and sweet flavor just in a hot walk with some pork.

28:41Oh, I love that. I always eat like the hachia, like the squishy persimmon. I feel like I prefer just kind of having that with like yogurt for breakfast, but I've never had like a savory style is unexpected. You're blowing my mind. I love that. Okay, a favorite kind of quick lunch spot in Maui. Oki seafood for poke. You got to get poke. Go over there. It's a family run business. So you always usually see ahi or tuna as the main fish for poke, but these guys will use things like skipjack tuna or yellow spot trevally with papil or ono. So just unique fishes that you normally don't see poke made with.

29:24That sounds so good. Okay. A favorite occasion restaurant? On Maui or? Yeah. Yeah. But if one comes to mind that's not there, I'll take it too. I just want to know if you could go celebrate, where would you go? Oh, man. Lamb's Kitchen, Chinatown, Honolulu. To celebrate. First thing, I like celebrating in the morning with a bowl of soup. And I can think of brisket and tendon soup with my best friends or my family early in the morning. That sounds really good. You like soup for breakfast? I do. I remember my parents who make la uya, which is like a bone soup with just some cabbage and potatoes. But they would start it from the night before.

30:15So you'd smell it simmering with ginger and bay leaves and peppercorns overnight. So when you wake up Sunday morning, it's ready to eat. Yeah. And then that does feel like a celebration because you've been looking forward to eating it the whole night before you finally get to have it. Yeah, yeah. So something about soup in the morning has stayed with me. I love that. Your favorite city to visit and go eat in? Oh, man. New York City. Yeah, that's definitely my favorite city. I know I said pizza, but yeah, I come here and I eat pizza like crazy. Every single shape and size of pizza slices. Do you have a favorite spot for pizza in New York?

31:00Some people say it fell off, but, you know, still Prince Street. I've been going there for years, and we always stop by there. You said pepperoni before. I feel like the pepperoni at Prince Street is, like, the most iconic pepperoni, so that makes sense to me. I like that. Something you think is an underrated kitchen utensil. Underrated would be a wooden spatula. I think for cooking, for scraping fond off of the bottom of a pot, people don't, that's where all that flavor is at. So when I'm making stews, I have a favorite wooden spatula that I use. You know, as it ages, it starts to shrink on you.

31:48Yeah. And luckily I have a few backups of it, but every few years I have to get rid of it. But all the flavors in there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's just the surface area of the spoon is or the spatula is too small. So I got to retire it. Damn, you must be doing some crazy things with your wooden spatulas. I cook a lot, for sure. Yeah. Okay. For your like, if you're having your birthday, it doesn't have to be birthday cake. But what would your like birthday dessert, dream birthday dessert be? Oh, man. would be cocoa puffs from Liliha Bakery with chantilly cream over the top of it. Profiteroles that is filled with cocoa cream, chocolate cream, but I don't think they use real chocolate in theirs.

32:43And then there's Hawaii-style chantilly cream over the top of it. I will eat dozens upon dozens of those. What's a Hawaii-style Chantilly cream? It's very sweet. It's not smooth. I don't know exactly how to make it, but it's just pretty much butter and sugar that sits on top of it. You can shake it, and it doesn't move. It's like, it's not really. It's very sturdy. As a kid, I would open up the box of cream puffs and I'd go in and I'd steal all the Chantilly cream off the top of them. I love that. Okay, hard one. Favorite fruit? Green mangoes. I don't like tropical, ripe tropical fruit. I like underripened fruit, just like the persimmon, just like green mangoes or unripened guavas.

33:44There's just something about it. I like the crispiness of it, the tartness of it. But once a tropical fruit gets too ripe, it just bothers me. Like durian, no ways. Jackfruit, no ways I'm eating that. It gets so sweet. I get wanting that kind of like subtle nuance of the flavor. And then are you always putting it with like the luheng moi? Yeah, I'm doing that or I'm dipping it in vinegar and chili pepper. Whoa, vinegar? Yeah. What kind of vinegar? Cane vinegar, apple cider vinegar, black pepper, a little bit of salt, sometimes fish sauce or Hawaiian chili peppers, and you're dipping it in that.

34:24Okay, I got to try that. Yeah. Final question, a fictional food scene, like from a book or a movie or something made up that you wish you could eat in real life? The Rock making me well he's playing the character Maui bringing me a slice of New York pizza in his lifted Toyota Tacoma truck cruising down the beach right next to Elvis and Dan Ho and listen to Hawaiian music my pizza slice heaven. Perfect. No notes. Well, I don't know if we'll ever get to that fantasy, but I'm going to do my wish fulfillment for you. Thank you so much, Sheldon. This has been such a fun conversation. Thank you so much.

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36:36Sang Doondara, welcome. This is Taste. So great to meet you. Hi, Matt. Thank you so much for having me. This is going to be a fun conversation. Your book, The Lao Kitchen, is out and it's really a remarkable work. It's kind of demystifying a lot of elements of Laos and the regions of Laos. and you really, really put in the work. Thank you. No, I'm so excited for the world to see the Lao Kitchen. It's been, I would say, like six years in the making, so it's time. It certainly is. But before we get to the book, let me ask you, you were raised in Wisconsin. What was food like growing up for you? Yeah, so I was born in a refugee camp in Thailand, and then we moved to Wisconsin when I was two years old.

37:25So yeah, raised most of my life in the Midwest, southern Wisconsin. And for me, food has always been in two different worlds. So like at school, I was eating, you know, the pizza, cheeseburgers, all that good, quote unquote, American food, right? And then at home on the weekends and the evenings after school, I would be eating Lao food. And so like my mom, they would always be working during the weekday. So I wouldn't really see them on the weekday. So but they would always have like a table full of food for us. So like a lot of different stews like gang romai, tom kim, and papaya salad, lap. So those were my weeknights and my weekend meals.

38:03You also maybe had some cheese curds, some Culver's, maybe State Street brats. Of course. Yeah, those were a treat as well. Well, I know there's a prominent Lao community in Wisconsin. and certainly it's cool. When you were seeing the weekend table appear, were you interested in food that was being prepared? Were you behind the stoves yourself? On the weekends when my mom was preparing all that food, I was just, I mean, I was always in the kitchen with my mom just observing, watching her make stuff. And when I got old enough, I started becoming like the kid that was like helping my mom peel the egg roll wrappers because she would always deep fry those and bring them to work and sell.

38:49So essentially, food has always been like that visual rotation in my life, being able to see the different contrasts. But I think growing up from into high school, it wasn't a dominant like, oh, I want to do food as a living, right? And so it wasn't until later in my 20s that it became more of a visual and important aspect of my life that I realized was missing from the outside world. Well, in fact, you had a career as a counselor and you went to college for that. But you end up working as a private chef. You maybe had some celebs. I read that you were the private chef of an NBA basketball player.

39:31You know, what's this life like as a private chef in California? Yeah, so private. So I'm not traditionally trained as a cook. So I'm a home cook, very passionate about that. And when I made the transition from academic counselor to private chef, it was a huge shift because that was a time where I was living in California or Los Angeles. and essentially I didn't know what being a chef or being a private chef was like, but on my Instagram profile, I had like a couple thousand followers at the time. I knew I was like, this is what I want to manifest in my life. Like I want to do food, but I don't know what exactly in food it is.

40:11So I put personal chef as my thing because I mean, I was cooking for my friends and family. So I was like, okay, I think this is kind of legit. But then I had like a agency that reached out to me and it was like, hey, we are looking for, a chef that we need for NBA player. And he likes Asian food. And so that became like the trajectory of like my boot camp of being a private chef. And so he essentially, it was like working, you know, making him breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and then making sure you prepare the next day, the following days. And so it was quite intense coming from a person that didn't come from like, you know, a private chef background.

40:50But I knew I was confident enough of my own food and my own skills that, you know, I could provide the adequate nutrition, like, you know, high protein, high carbs, you know, of that type of meal. And so it was an amazing summer of, you know, learning the ropes of being a private chef and also learning that I didn't want to be a private chef afterwards because he was there just for the summer. He was in West Hollywood. He would come every summer to train. And so after that summer, word of mouth grew and I got other clients and And that shifted to my personal chef business, where I would go maybe once a week to a person's house and cook meal prep for them or for their family.

41:32And I had more time to do my passion in cooking for people and also my passion of video. Well, I love this NBA player. I mean, the fact that they reached out and wanted Asian food, wanted somebody with your background. And I mean, what kind of dishes were you making for this NBA player? And who's the player? So I signed an NDA. I don't think I can say who he is, but the person I didn't. So I'm not big on sports. I don't really know much in that world. But I knew his girlfriend at the time, which was Kendall Jenner. So I got to talk to her a lot. But for this player, he he loved Asian food. He loved Lao food.

42:09And it was so surprising that they even knew about that. But I think that also shows like, oh, it's like word of mouth at the same time for types of cuisines that are maybe not as mainstream. the food that I interviewed for him actually they said make the best dish you can make and I made him lop chicken lop and they love that so much they hired me and for that summer they had like khao pun lao curry noodle soup they had khao piek send in the morning chicken noodle soup from Laos and then of course I would rotate like other types of cuisines like I think lao food for them was like a special meal because it takes a lot of work right um and so i would find a rotation that was doing enough work but not too much because i knew that it was going to be a long week um and so those were the types of dishes i made so rad so rad i mean you kendall jenner has dated several nba players so i can't i can't speculate who it is uh so that's a good way to do it um But I love that you're cooking Lao food and that this NBA player who will remain nameless had great taste.

43:15So let's talk about just launching yourself into the world of Reels TikTok and YouTube. I went back into your YouTube, and you've been doing this for a while. And I just love the way you explain. I love the way you produce. I think it's such a service. You are teaching us how to cook this cuisine that is quite detailed at times. And you're doing it in a way that just you make it seem easy. And that's a real skill. Yes. My cooking, my online life, I think, started essentially in 2017 when I uploaded my first YouTube video. And for a while, I was just doing a lot of long-form videos of, like you said, like tutorials on how to make Lao food.

43:58and a lot of the times it was a you know it's a very niche topic right and so for me as a person that is trying to do get into this like internet world it's probably not the best in terms of like views but I think for me I had to remind myself like my goal was never to be that the biggest followers of YouTube and Instagram my goal has always been centered in community and making sure that my community was being able to give in that spotlight because they've been here since 75 so 50 years now and to and for now people to finally feel like you know they kind of know what laofood is um and i think that's where my passion and goal for my youtube channel has lied in yeah well said i think uh you're not like a you're not like doing thirst traps yes not yet not yet i mean you got a book to sell so that could change uh well i want to talk about the hashtag not larb campaign.

44:53I'm saying that L-A-R-B. I really feel like this is one of the most specific pieces of advocacy I've seen from a food influencer. You're correcting how a dish is spelled and pronounced. I really think it's smart. Walk me through this hashtag not larb. We know it's pronounced lab. I would say campaign. Yeah. So that campaign started in the summer of 2021 when I was locked in a hotel room in Atlanta because I was filming for Rat in the Kitchen, one of the TV shows that's no longer on air. But I was pretty much I had a lot of time because I was locked in the room. It was during the pandemic. And so we couldn't go anywhere.

45:36And so essentially, I was on my phone 24 seven. And it just it larb, the word larb has always been like this word that stung myself and the Lao community. It's like when you put chalk on a chalkboard, that's the sound we hear, right? And so it's always been that undercurrent that's been talked about like, oh, we hate that. People keep mispronouncing it. And so I think at that time, I finally, I would say, got the courage to be like, okay, I think this is where we can kindly address people within this culinary world. And to let them know, like, hey, it's, can you pronounce it Laop? Like, this is the national dish of Laos.

46:14This is a dish that is, holds so much value and love within the Lao culture that I wanted to propel it into the spotlight of, like, at least this is where we're going to start at. Let's not pronounce it Laop, but let's try to pronounce it Laop. And then the tears of this campaign was essentially to acknowledge, you know, where this dish originated from, to be able to talk about it more and to be able to bring in the community that it came from. Because for so long, it was always about other people talking about LARP for the community instead of the Lao people having that voice or that say. And so essentially, since 2021, I realized, you know, the community behind it, they loved it so much.

46:57Like they were finding their own confidence as I was finding mine to be able to address it. And I think this is the look of, oh, this may look minute for some people from the outside, but this is the iceberg, right, of what Lao food is. So this is essentially what people see in the beginning. Really, really, really smart. And I think that, you know, we all know what lab is and we know that it's a delicious protein based salad doesn't always have to have meat in it, but it often does. And we may be associated with Thailand more than Laos, but you are democratizing it and saying it's not just one thing, it's many things.

47:39Yeah, I think that's exactly what you said that, you know, the association of what mainstream media has always pushed may not always be the correct thing. And so I think what NotLARP campaign has done is, yeah, democratize this dish and finally shown that like this history that's been ignored for so long that we can finally talk about it in a way that is representative of the dish and the people. and I even have like a whole chapter dedicated to lop that I love writing about. And it's actually, I've made it at home myself and I would say some lobs are pretty easy to make. Yeah, no, I think the signature lop that I always encourage people to make is the chicken lop.

48:24Like that is so fun, easy to make. Whether you're going to use ground chicken from the store or whole chicken, I love using the chicken skin and making that crispy as that extra crunch when it's done. Yeah. Well, let's talk about the cookbook. You write, quote, Laos, like the United States, is a land of incredible diversity, home to hundreds of ethnic groups that bring their unique languages, traditions, and flavors to the table. How does this play out in the book? And what are these groups you speak of? You know, I think this is a fact that you write about vividly in the book that many, myself included, don't fully realize and actualize?

49:02Yeah, so because not many people know about Laos in general and the country, I kind of wanted to use when I was writing this book as an opportunity, almost as a history and textbook to introduce all these different things about the country. And so to start, you look at the different ethnic groups, right? So Laos is the majority ethnic group, but also Laos is the culture also at the same time when you talk about the country of Laos. And so within In Laos, there are already like 49 ethnic groups. And then subcategory to that, there was like over 200. So it is a very diverse country. I like to compare it to like America.

49:40Like, you know, we have so many different types of people within this country. But of course, there's like this quote unquote American like culture. And so for Laos, I kind of took that perspective and wanted to shine a light on like the big groups like the Lao people, the Camus people, which is the indigenous people of Laos, the Hmong, the Mian, the Aka. And I think a lot of times Americans are probably introduced to Laos through the Hmong people because the Hmong people, most of them in the United States have come from Laos. And so that is also a lot of history as well through the post-Vietnam War, the secret war.

50:18And for my parents, it was very much differentiated within the Lao community in Laos of lowland, midland, highland. So I talk about all of that in the Laos, in the cookbook, and also reference different recipes that are tied within various ethnic groups. Yeah, it's really, really worth picking up. It is, I agree, a textbook, but a well-written one, one that you want to actually read. And I learned a lot. Of course, you touch on the secret war, which is a part of history that is not taught in American schools. So tell me about Pingay Thai Padek, the roasted grilled chicken recipe that it really jumped off the page.

50:59You call Lao BBQ a true art form. What does that mean? Yeah, so if anyone goes to Laos for the first time and you'll see all the smoke, the fire, and that really resonated with me when I went to Laos for the first time. because it connected my parents' daily weekend cooking of their barbecue with charcoal and the grill and just tied in so well on why Lao people love to barbecue. And so, for example, this dish, bingkai tabarak, is representative of one of the types of Lao barbecue out there. Essentially, it is marinated in all these aromatics, fish sauce, soy sauce, things like that. And then I think what makes it extra special is near the end is when you glaze it with this unfiltered fish sauce we call badak and with a little sugar to balance it out.

51:51And so when badak touches like aromatics, it just is a very umami-licious dish at the end. And so this was my way of introducing people like, you know, people love Korean barbecue. There's all types of other barbecues out there, but to realize that Lao barbecue is one of those types that people don't actually get to try or see often. And I really, truly see it as an art form through my lens because that is what my parents have mastered all their life, right? To be able to provide food through the fire, through the charcoal, grilling, whatever they needed. And I think one of the ways that exemplify this is also like how they ferment certain meats also to like increase that level of flavor.

52:38But yeah, binkai tabadak, the grilled chicken wings is like my interpretation of if you don't have a grill or charcoal, you can still make it in the oven. It's really, really, really, really special. I cannot wait to make it. Tell me about khao soi lao, a tomato pork noodle soup. You know, I was familiar with the Thai version of khao soi, which translates to cut rice, but it's very different from this. You know, the northern Thai dish that's very creamy with coconut. Yours that you highlight in the book is different. Yeah, so khao soi in Laos is very different from Thailand. So this is an example of like sometimes, you know, words like dishes in Laos may have some similarities to Thai dishes.

53:19But this is actually the complete opposite where they have the same name, but they're very different dishes. So like Khao Soi Lao is from northern Laos, mostly Luong Pa Bang, the food capital of Laos. And that is where you'll find a noodle dish. Like it is, Khao Soi also means the same thing in Lao as well. So like cut noodles. And so the noodles are like thinner and a little bit longer and flat, almost like fettuccine noodles. And then the broth is usually made out of pork broth. very simple broth with aromatics like cilantro roots, onions. And then I think what makes it really special is the sauce on the side.

53:55And so in the north, a lot of the times they're known for fermenting beans called tuanau. And so they use tuanau in this dish in a way to kind of make like a Bolognese style tomato sauce. So it's like tomatoes, ground pork, this fermented bean curd, and it just, you mix it up well and then you add however much you like to the noodle soup. and I think what makes it extra special is what is put on top so you eat it with fried crispy rice so you get the slurp from the noodles the warm broth and then that extra crispy rice that you're munching on such a great combination of texture and flavor and fermentation I love that dish Sang, tell us about photographing the book in Laos you know, you really show there's a documentary approach to the book and it's unique Did you spend a lot of time there photographing it?

54:47Yeah, so the lifestyle photos from the book are mostly in Laos. And so that was in 2023 and 2024, where I bring—it was during my Lao foodie tour. So I bring about 15, 20 people to Laos with me every year to experience my favorite Lao restaurants and food. And so essentially, I was able to do two-in-one, bringing the joy of people experiencing food together and also capturing these special moments for me and for them of all my favorite spots in Laos. And so it was a really special moment because I got to capture, like, if you look through the book, you'll see, like, the morning markets where all the villagers, all the people from around town come to the morning markets to sell their special herbs, their seasonal vegetables.

55:32And then also from being able to see the almsgiving where you wake up, like, 4.30 in the morning and be able to give alms to the kid monks that are walking around the city. And those moments in the book, I think really defined what I wanted the book to be too. When you opened the book, I wanted you to be able to go to Laos with me, essentially through the visuals, but also still be able to make the dishes because I tried my best to make the dishes as accessible to like an American grocery store and pantry. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about these food tours. What's the setup like? It sounds like a blast.

56:12Yeah. So before the pandemic, we were actually going to start the first one, but it got stalled because of it. So we started the first food tour in 2022, I believe. And essentially, it is 15 to 20 people from anywhere around the world that meet me in Laos for a nine-day trip, touring three different cities in northern Laos. And usually we go in October because that's a really good time to be in Laos. And I think the best type of, if you're a foodie and you love, you travel because of food, this is the type of tour you want to be on because this is where you're meeting 15 other people from all around the world that have the same type of mindset of wanting to explore a culture, understand food and the people.

56:58And you get to literally taste dozens of hundreds of dishes because you're able to share all those foods with people. And I've made incredible friendships and relationships through this tour, and I'm very grateful. And actually, some of them have become recipe testers for me in the book. Oh, of course. So it's a full circle moment. Sounds like a blast. Well, let me ask you, is there a dish that you think will surprise somebody who thinks they know, or maybe they do know, a lot about Southeast Asian cuisine? Yeah. Yeah. So when I was writing the book, there was like, I had so many recipes that I wanted in here, but I essentially like cut half of my recipes.

57:34So there's like a whole nother set that's still in my brain. But I think one of the dishes that I for sure wanted in the book was lap tau. So this is a type of lap, but not many people have tried it. So this lap tau is, the original version is made with river weed, river weed that is soft, that you can, it's almost silky texture that is is mixed with badag and is more liquidy. So there's essentially no ground meat in there. It is more of a wet version of lop, I guess you could say. And this one is very special because it is really hard to access river weed anywhere, even in the United States. But my mom actually was able to, with her foraging skills, was able to find river weed within southern Wisconsin.

58:22So So it was a really special dish to have. But within the recipe, I make it accessible because the alternative to a lot of what Lao Americans do is actually use spinach. So we blanch the spinach, grind it up, and it becomes somewhat similar. It's still different, but somewhat similar enough that we use it for our lap towel. Amazing that your mom was able to forage that in Wisconsin and find it in the streams. Very, very cool. Sang, this has been so much fun catching up with you. Thank you so much for joining This is Taste. Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

59:20is at and Ian Dingham. 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.