From “幾乎沒有 Basically Nothing,” Pop-Up Chef James Chang Defines Taiwanese American Cuisine in Kansas City

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[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1440"] Photo provided by James Chang[/caption] Chef James Chang was perusing the aisle at the Pan Asian Supermarket in Overland Park, Kansas when I spoke with him. Along the way, he picked up soy paste, oyster sauce, black vinegar, rice wine, ChingKiang vinegar. These were items for his upcoming pop-up and a collaboration dinner he was planning for the following week. Chang grew up in Taiwan and Southern California, then moved to Kansas City where he made…

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“Baking is working, right?”: Meet Baker Cat Cheng, from Netflix’s “Blue Ribbon Baking Championship”

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Baker Cat Cheng of Cat’s Bakes on Discovering a Her New Talent and Chasing the Blue Ribbon Cat Cheng became a music teacher straight out of college, but found herself struggling to continue down that path despite devoting much of her life to the craft. When COVID hit, she, like many, took to baking as a hobby and a distraction. But her skills quickly flourished and she saw the potential for baking to become a small business. Within a few short years, she launched Cat’s Bakes, a home baking business,…

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Taiwanese Homecoming: Meet Artist Felicia Liang

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We may try, but it’s not often our travel scrapbooks look as vivid as artist Felicia Liang’s. Liang’s art often depicts the cuisine, still life, and everyday objects of the Asian American experience. In 2022, as she prepared for a trip to Taiwan, she grabbed a set of color pencils, her preferred medium. There, she would sketch a range of foods and scenes she encountered during her three-month stay: scenes of Taiwanese breakfast, cafe eats, local sweets, and colorful dumplings. The contents…

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A True Family Business: Jessica Wang of Gu Grocery in conversation with Tiffany Ran

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I thought I first met Jessica Wang and her mother, who lovingly goes by the name Mama Peggy, at the LA River Farmers Market a few years ago. But looking back in my shoebox of old photos from high school, I dug out a picture of my friends enjoying a park picnic and there she was. My friend had asked to bring along a family friend that day. We'd all enjoyed a day at the park and I hadn’t seen her since. That is, until the day at the LA River Farmers Market so many years later, when we started chatting…

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