Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast - Roy Choi on The Comforts of Underwear Rice

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

Chef and gourmet food truck creator Roy Choi takes us back to his childhood in Los Angeles, where different cultures and cuisines came together for public park barbecues. He opens up about being a hot-headed teenager and shares how he learned to rebuild the bridges in his life that he previously burned down. Plus we learn how to make his Bimbim Noodle Salad. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. Your Mama's Kitchen is brought to you by Rivian. As a minority in this country, there's racism. And many times when you do receive it and you're outnumbered, you have to be quiet. You have to accept it. You have to absorb it. So Monday through Friday or Monday through Saturday, you absorb all of that pain and that anguish. But then Sunday or Saturday,

you go to the park and you be yourself, you know? And that's when you bring the fermented stuff, you bring the stinky stuff, you bring the marinated barbecue, and you go to the park and you find a spot, and then other families come too, and then you can, you don't have to be quiet.

And that's what the barbecues in the park were really about. Hello, hello. Welcome back to Your Mama's Kitchen. This is a place where we explore how we are shaped as adults by the kitchens that we grow up in as kids. Not just the food, but all the other stuff. The games, the arguments, how we learned about handling emotions and family budgets and surprises at the stove.

I'm Michelle Norris. And lucky me because today I am joined by Roy Choi. This dude is a culinary icon and I am not overstating that. He is the founder of Koji, the Korean barbecue taco truck that helped spark the nationwide food truck movement. His life story was part of the inspiration for the movie Chef starring Jon Favreau and he also served as a culinary producer on that film. I love that film. I have seen it several times. I keep the soundtrack in heavy rotation in my house because I love that too. Roy is exploring

new kinds of street tacos in his newest venture. It's called Tacos Por Vida. And he has a new cookbook called The Choy of Cooking. I'm going to grab it because it's so beautiful and I want to show it to you. The Choy of Cooking. It's a beautiful volume that is so much more than just a cookbook. We're going to get into that in just a minute. But first, I want to welcome Roy Choi. Welcome to Your Mama's Kitchen. Hey, great to be here. Well, you know, we always begin talking about Your Mama's Kitchen.

So can we go back to Orange County? That's where you spent most of your childhood. Walk me inside that kitchen. What would I see? Yeah. What would I smell? Yeah, actually, I split my whole life between LA and Orange County. So the first half of my life, I grew up in LA, then high school years, Orange County,

then back to LA. But the kitchen remained the same all throughout. And that kitchen was a kitchen that was always on, almost like a restaurant kitchen or a 24-hour diner is a better example. It never didn't have food on the stove. It never didn't have a full refrigerator. There wasn't ever blenders that weren't full. There was always fermenting product everywhere throughout the kitchen. You would have to kind of, it was like an obstacle course, basically. You know,

you would have to climb over things that were either drying, being soaked, fermenting, and there was everything, any flat surface was a surface for a bowl or a bucket or a container or a jar. So that, that was pretty much it. It was, it was, it was a beautiful place to grow up as far as when you're inside the family, but it was a horrible place to bring friends. Oh, why? When you're young, because teenagers are mean.

They're mean, man. And when you bring friends into a house that has bubbling fermented pots everywhere and there's no cereal, there's no cookies. Okay, I get it. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's like, it's just full of living things. It looks like a biology lab. And so, you know, 16 year olds, 13 year olds, 14 year olds are mean. And I never brought

anyone into my house. Did something happen where you said I'm not doing that again? Yeah, you know, when I probably when I was like 14, 15. But things have changed now, you know, back then, people didn't have as much information. And, you know, there were stereotypes about life, you know, that people were just ignorant, you know what I'm saying? But yeah, like, I think the most traumatic time was, my mom was making this very stinky stew, which is the most delicious stew.

And somehow, in a lot of foods, it works out that way. The stinkiest, nastiest looking thing, smelling thing is the most delicious thing, you know? And of course, the day I bring over like the friends I wanted to like, you know, connect with and the cool crowd and like this girl I was trying to holla at, you know, like, of course, the day the one day I bring them over, she's making that soup. And the look, the horrified look that they gave me has scarred me for a long time. You still remember it. Oh, I still remember it. I'm an OG now, old guy now, but like, you know, that time when

I was 14, 15 still haunts me. But I love my family. I love growing up in that house. I loved waking up, you know, discombobulated and having to go through that obstacle course every morning and opening the refrigerator and finding all these trap doors. And the trap doors, what I mean is, is like nothing was labeled. So everything was reused.

So cool whip containers, Gatorade bottles, water bottles, whatever it is, you know. The Gatorade bottle didn't have Gatorade in it. Nah, it had fish stock. And then when you... But it's the same color. It's the same color. So when you come run home, oh, I did chuck that. When you come, oh, the curry bars. I don't know if you ever made curry, like the Japanese curry bars wrapped up in foil, rewrapped up in foil and put in a Ziploc and you think it's a chocolate bar. And then so

you come run home and on a hot day and then you open the Gatorade and you chug it ice cold fish broth and you take a bite out of the curry bar but it's like you thought it was chocolate. So it was all of that but growing up in that house, it shaped me. It made me, my mom, you know, made me even though the milkshakes tasted like kimchi paste, even though the Gatorade tasted like fish broth, it was the stuff of nutrients. It was the stuff of love. You know, my mom was a hustler. She worked, she woke up every morning, probably at 4 a.m. on the dot, like a military sergeant,

drill sergeant. And she, I woke up to just like literally like seven to eight bubbling pots. The sink always on cooking, the blender going, you know, you didn't need an alarm clock in my house. Oh, I love that though, that image of everything, everything happening at once. This in this, in your mama's kitchen, we almost have a Korean subgenre because we've talked to several people about their umma, their Korean mommies. And we talked to Sarah Ahn and Eric Kim and Randall Park. One of the things we haven't talked about is a breakfast.

What did your mom make for breakfast? So you woke up and you heard the whirring of the blender and all the pots bubbling. What was breakfast like? Okay, it wasn't cereal and oatmeal, I could tell you that. But what it was, was these pots. So it was usually something spicy. So I'll just give you specific ones. So let's say broiled, and braised mackerel in a chili sauce.

Then there would be like a fermented soybean stew. There would be an oxtail broth. And then there would be a spicy kimchi kind of… All this for breakfast? All this for breakfast. I'm not even done yet. I'm only a quarter away through, Michelle.

Then there would be salted, salted and broiled fish like croaker that would have been hanging in the backyard or the front yard sometimes. My mom started hanging those fish in the front yard sometimes. My mom started hanging those fish in the front yard and then the neighbors had to come over and say, yo, like, y'all can't be doing this. Like she would hang squid, octopus, and croaker. It seemed like you might have visitors also like cats or you know. Yeah, in the front yard and dried anchovies on the roof. And yeah, the neighbors.

Did you say on the roof? On the roof. Yeah, on a tarp. Yeah, and the neighbors would, yeah, they had to intervene. But so there would be broiled fish, there would be all kinds of different pickled pangchang, which is Korean korean side dishes so there would be maybe seven to ten of those uh anything from like zucchini to bean sprouts to cucumbers to cabbage uh black beans all those things there would be rice probably two types of rices like a like a

purple rice or a or a brown rice and then like a white rice. And then so we've had the stews, soups, panchans, broiled fish, rice. There would be some type of porridge. And then yeah, that would be breakfast. That would be breakfast every day. And then it would be that amount of food every day, but all of the different stews or broiled, the fish would change from mackerel to croaker to yellow tail or whatever the case may be. The stew may change from kimchi to soybean to something else. The broth may change from oxtail to short rib to chicken, but there would always be three soups, two rices, two fish, seven to ten panchan, a couple braised dishes and a couple surprises. Yeah.

Yeah. So food in abundance. Your parents worked in the food industry. Was the kitchen like their test kitchen where they were trying things out that they would that they would use in their other way I would say so if you put it that way, but I don't think it was approached that way I think it was just by default because my mom never stopped cooking So it was a continuous it was like a salad, my mom is like a sourdough starter. It never stops, you know, so like she's constantly adding and fermenting her own existence in a way.

And so she'll never stop from the morning to the night. And then when we had the restaurant, or when she was selling kimchi out of the trunk or when we were Open when we had liquor stores or those type of things, you know, she was always she would transition from home to the restaurant or the business and then come back with stuff from the restaurant of the business and transition back to home And then so it was constantly a circle. And you see that right now in a lot of immigrant families that cook their food at home and they go out and sell it on the street. It was no different than that, you know, and that's how we grew up too.

So the food that was being, you know, I hope the health department ain't listening to this because the food that would be cooking at home would be taken to the restaurant and then, you know, because there was not enough time in the day in the restaurant to prep that food. So you'd have to bring it home and then peel the bean sprouts or ferment the cabbage and do those things and then bring them back to the restaurant. So it never stopped. You know, a lot of people in those communities and immigrant communities are also selling food because there are people who are looking for the taste of home. Oh, absolutely. Especially fresh immigrants that come in and then as generations get passed on and continue on.

continue on. And the funny thing about that is a lot of these restaurants built by immigrants, whatever community is, and the families and the homes, a lot of these places are from people that were never cooks before. Cooking, cooking, and remembering home and these flavors, for many people, this is the first time that they're even cooking their own food when they come to another country. And it's just like almost like animalistic, humanistic instinct that ignites within them and it creates a whole new being within them. Some of them could have been studying in college, some of them could have been coming from rich families, some were refugees or whatever the case may be. The thing is that they weren't cooks before, they were never cooks. But somehow they figure it out, you know, and then they take this patchwork of ingredients that aren't the same ingredients and they find their way to the flavor again, but in any case

Yeah, these are these are all built To remind them of home you know a lot of people think that people leave their country because And especially in America, you know, it's like oh your country sucks That's why you want to come here But sometimes that's not the case. A lot of people leave their country because they have to leave. You know, they don't want to leave.

They have to leave. And they miss it. You know, a lot of people- And the food is a way for them to remain tethered to that. Yeah, the tether, it's a way to find and hold on to their identity, especially in countries where the language is not the same. It's a touchstone. It's a foundation.

And it's a gathering place. It's almost like a signal or a magnet that allows other immigrants that have come but you didn't know to come together. You find each other at the park, or you find each other in someone's home. And you may have never known each other before, but the food brings it together. It's like a cartoon when the smell goes and it hits the nose of the dog. It's like that. Somehow it's very magical and spiritual. You mentioned the park. Your family used to have these regular picnics. Absolutely.

They would pack up and was that an example of meeting members of the community and coming together? It was definitely that, but it was a lot deeper than that. As a minority in this country, there's racism, you know what I'm saying? And you understand that. Oh, I do. We all understand that. You know, and it's hard to explain that if you've never been through it or if you don't receive it.

And in many times, when you do receive it and you're outnumbered you have to be quiet You have to accept it. You have to absorb it and so what happens is and along with the what comes with that is also You know the compounding effect of having to hustle and work and work three jobs Or you know work 20 hours a day and take care of a family figure this country out, but you You know, work 20 hours a day and take care of a family, figure this country out. But you absorb all that and you move on and you take it. But in any case, so Monday through Friday or Monday through Saturday, you absorb all of that pain and that anguish and those arrows.

But then Sunday or Saturday, you go to the park and you be yourself, you know. And that's when you bring the fermented stuff and that's when you bring, you bring the fermented stuff you bring the stinky stuff you bring the the marinated barbecue, and you go to the park and you find a spot. And then other families come to and then you can, you don't have to be quiet, you don't have to shield yourself from from the arrows, you don't have to, you don't have to like, look away or just like be outnumbered. You can stretch your legs and open your heart and be silly and be funny and be stupid, you

know? And that's what the barbecues in the park were really about. We're about being human. You're painting such a beautiful picture. What park would they go to? We would go to Griffith Park. Oh yeah. You know, yeah, we were here in LA. Griffith Park was the first park. That was the main

park and Elysian Park. Because when we first immigrated here, we immigrated to, you know, Koreatown, kind of downtown area. So the first, that was the first wave of immigration and the first parks that were closest to us were definitely Elysian Park and Griffith Park. As that expanded out, it would go out to like Whittier Narrows or out to the east side near Pico Rivera, or it would go down towards Torrance. The parks would spread out. You would go to smaller parks throughout west LA, things like that. And then as we went to Orange County, we would go to Mile Square Park in Fountain Valley, or you would go to places like that, but just big municipal parks.

You know, I lived in LA many years ago, and I used to see people at parks. And you're helping me understand that what I was seeing was so much deeper than what maybe I understood. Oh. You know, that when people were coming together, it was not just, you know, coming together over the food. It was an expression of pride. It was a way for them to let off steam. It was a way for them to take the mask off. Take the mask off. Exactly. Be yourself and say the jokes and again, not be quiet. Be as loud as you want to be, you know, and the park was great for that, you know, because you're outside, you know, maybe there's a freeway going by, especially Griffith Park, you know, the noise is canceled

out. So yeah, that's what you were witnessing. Roy, your cookbook at the end has a letter to a young Roy Choi. And in reading about you, you said something repeatedly that you went almost three years where you did not smile. That the young Roy Choi was often very angry. What was the source of that anger and how did you work through that? I got a good smile though. You see that? Yeah, you should have shared that with the world. Why were you keeping that from people? That's why I shine so bright right now because I held it for so long. You're making up for lost time?

Yeah, I'm making up. I can't take it off now. I was just an angry kid, you know, for many reasons. I think just me as a person, you know, my DNA, you know, my spiritual existence in this world, you know, my cosmic like presence here, like I think I just have this, this like, this piece of me that is very, you know, also is very sensitive. I'm a Pisces too, you know, so I'm extremely sensitive to a lot of things, you know, in many different ways, you know and not using the word sensitive in in in the romantic way it is sensitive in that you pick up on all the algorithms and energies of what's going on and You know in many cases I was I when I was younger I would pick up on a lot of that frustration and Angst and energy and they would be maximized. They would be exploding within me. At the same time, dealing... So it was a compounding effect and then dealing

with the stuff we mentioned earlier about the racism and about the ridicule, about the arrows in life, trying to meander and figure out my place in this country, you know, in America. You know, moving a lot, that was a big thing, you know. You just start to get your feet settled down and then you move in. You know, the pressure from my parents at home, you know, being Asian, you got to be smart and you got to study well and then you compare to all your cousins and your family friends and there's like really only one path to go. And I didn't fit into that path and I couldn't explain or define what I was feeling at that time.

I didn't have the words for that. I didn't have the examples for that, you know? And so I couldn't just bust out the examples for that, you know, and so I couldn't just bust out and sing Billie Holiday, you know, like I didn't have that talent within me. And so, you know, my parents were like, you know, you're not an artist, you're not creative, like just study. And I was trying to figure those things out. And I don't know, I think it was just all of those things together at a very specific time in this world, you know, during the 80s and 90s. And I just couldn't figure out how to express those things

or bottle those things or funnel those things in the right way. So I was angry. You. So I was angry. I was angry. I was scowling. I was mean. I was quiet. I was reclusive. I was I would shut a lot of people out. I would shut the world out. I was very nocturnal. You know, I'd roll late at night, just sneak out of my window and just, I was like an alley cat, you know? I was like a cat, but I had like a... Where were you going when you snuck out of your window? On the streets, you know what I'm saying? Just hanging out.

Just hanging out. Just hanging out. Alley, streets, liquor stores, back parking lots, things like that. Just riding the bus for hours. But I had this weird homing device within me that I'd always return back. And I lived in this kind of dichotomy of like, just wanting to run away and just run away from the world. But somehow always coming back and following the rule, like being at the table for breakfast, you know, or, you know, or doing my homework, you know, things like that. Like, you know, even though I rebelled against it, there was a part of me that was still instilled within me from my family structure and from my parents, but I fought it as hard as I could. But I ended up still balancing that.

And I think that is a lot of who I am as a person, um, and who I am as a cook and I am as, as a chef and as a leader of the people that are within my organization and my team and my family. Um, I think that they know they need to give me my space, but at the same time, they know I'm always gonna be there. I'm gonna ask this delicately. In another part of my life, you mentioned dealing with race as an Asian man.

And in another part of my life, I deal with matters of race directly. And I've talked to thousands of people about this issue. Asian man and in another part of my life, I deal with matters of race directly. And I've talked to thousands of people about this issue through the work I do at the Race Card Project. And there are certain themes that come up over and over again. And one of the things that I have heard repeatedly from children of Asian parents is sometimes experiencing anger but not being able to express it. And experiencing anger sometimes on behalf of their parents and seeing the way the world treats

their parents and being frustrated that their parents don't express anger or don't have an outlet for that anger. And it can be very confusing for young people who are dealing on one hand with the myth of the Asian super student but also with their parents seeing the myth of the Asian model minority. And is that something that fed into what you were feeling at all? Yeah, absolutely. Those are very correct observations and information that you have received. At the end of the day, my blood and my family and my race is Asian, but I'm American, right?

So going out there, I see all kinds of other people. I go to all kinds of other homes growing up and I see all my friends and I see their relationship with their parents or I see broken homes or I see I see their grandma or their auntie raising them or I see their parents and then I see The discourse that they were having right they were able to argue with each other or they were able to be mad at each other Or yell at each other or even call each other by their first name You know call their dad by their first name or their mom by their first name or bum a cigarette off their parents or you know, whatever

the case may be, they had a closer equal exchange than we had as Asian children. Because there really wasn't a way to talk back to your parents growing up in an Asian household, you know You had to keep your mouth shut and your head down and produce You know whether that's produce in grades in school whether that's produced in helping out the family business Whether that's to produce it into in being a good kid, you know being someone that they could be proud about You know because you got to remember a lot of these parents, these families, these people had come over and given up on their own life to build a life for their kids. And whether that is fair or not, we can argue that because that's not fair for the kid to have received that burden.

But it is true, you know, so you have these Asian humans that have come over and they at early ages, like 21, 22, maybe in 27, whatever, they come over and they never had the experience or chance to live their own life or fulfill their own dream, you know? And then so they come over and then immediately they're thrown into three jobs, working graveyard, custodial work, opening small shops and being there 18 hours a day, building a small and then they, maybe they wanted to be a doctor. Maybe they wanted to be a podcaster. Maybe they wanted to work in the race relations department.

Maybe they wanted to work for the government, but they can't do that no more. So then they raised their kid and they put all that in their kid. And so the kid can't mess up, you know, the kid can't explore and you have to just listen. So that's the household. So in many cases, a lot of Asian American kids, we grow up in a double life. We have our life within the walls of our home, which is somewhere trapped in this purgatory between the old country and this new country. And what stays in, it's like Vegas, what stays in that house, happens in the house, stays in the house, you know? And so then, and then you go out, then you got to live in this kind of, this weird chasm, you know, this weird like multiverse. And

then you go out, open the front door and you walk out to the world, and then you got to live in America. You know what I'm saying? Like you got to live where you can, you have to clap back, you have to have, you have to be quick on your feet, you have to have jokes, you got to figure out pop culture, you know, you got to have style, you know what I'm saying? Like you got to, you got to have all these things. And then you gotta come back home and then be quiet again and be studious and hardworking and never show your anger and never argue to your parents. You can't argue to an Asian parent.

You can't say they're wrong, you know? Actually, that sounds a little bit like an African American household. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. There's no talking back. No talking back. I'm just saying. We're all more similar than we are different.

You know what I'm saying? We're more similar than we are different. And there certainly wasn't anybody calling parents by their first names. No. That was not happening. Yeah. So, it was more like, but yeah, I mean, absolutely. So that was the pressure and the complexity of the model minority or overachieving perception

of Asian and what it was really like. It was human. It was dealing with all the complex emotions and things, but there were just different codes and different rules that had to be followed. Hey there, it's Michelle Norris. I'm sure you've heard of that term aging gracefully. That's all good and fine. But I think most of us really want to age healthily.

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There are new episodes out every Thursday. So subscribe, please, and listen wherever you get your podcasts. So when you describe your mom's kitchen, you just sounded like it was this really wonderful, happy, energetic space. Was that a respite from the pressures that you felt if you all were together in the kitchen and the food was good and you were together as a family? Did that feel like like it let, you know, that was the place where you, to use the metaphor, did that feel like, like, it let you know

that was the place where you to use the metaphor let some of the steam out of the pot? Yeah, I mean, looking back in hindsight, it was probably a way of coping for sure. But in the moment, as it was happening, there was no kind of like when we started the food truck, Kogi, you know, it ended up becoming this pathway to something deeper. But in the moment, you're just in the moment. You know, we were just serving the people in front of us, just out there, you know, just like a street performer, just expressing ourselves, not knowing that we would be something

bigger later, you know. And I think that's what it was like, you know, eating in our home. There was just, it was instinctual. There's no other way that we could live. That was just the way that it was being expressed to deal with everything that was going on. It was the way that we communicated with each other. So maybe we didn't have the communication tools to talk to each other or talk back to each other or explain ourselves to each other. You know what I mean?

Maybe we didn't have the ways, my parents didn't have the ways to express their sensitivity and their hurt and their pain and their struggle in words. But when we sit down and eat and cook together, that's how we communicate. Yeah. It's amazing when you started Kogi how it took off. I mean, it was brilliant also that you would show up at the hottest club and you would be outside because people step outside and it's late at night and they're hungry and there you are, you're right there. But your path, your path to culinary stardom is interesting because it sounds like your mom held it down in the kitchen, but you were not actually doing a lot of the cooking.

And in reading your story, there was this moment where you had an epiphany. You had moved back home. You had been through a rather difficult period. As you described, you had had a gambling addiction at one point and you were eating your feelings and you were working through anger and you'd move back home. And I can just picture you sprawled out on the couch or maybe sitting on your bed and you're watching Emeril Lagasse. Yes. And you have this sort of epiphany.

What was going through your mind? Why were you open to that in that moment? And what was it that Emeril Lagasse was doing or saying or cooking that spoke to you in such a powerful way? Yeah. I'll start with being open to it. Like rock bottom makes you open to a lot of things you know so uh when you hit rock bottom you know and i mean like rock bottom i mean like bottom of the ocean rock bottom

you know um when you hit that level there's there's nothing left so all you can do is be open or or or end it all you know i mean like that's like, that's kind of where you are. So, um, that, that, that part is probably where I was to be able to hear that television program, to be able to see that television program through the fog, through the couch, I was couch surfing. program, through the fog, through the couch, I was couch surfing. To be able to see it as I was just waking up, it was probably on all night as I was sleeping in my subconscious and then to be able to wake up in that moment. I was ready.

I was just ready for it. I was ready to stop being angry to stop being you know a dickhead To stop being a scumbag, you know, I was ready To try to to do something the hardest some sometimes the hardest thing about growing up is growing up, you know, and and so That's that's probably where I that I mean that's where I was. So so what was I was there, I was open to it. Emeril was on the TV, he was cooking braised short rib and I just had an out of body experience. That's the only way I can describe it.

For me, he reached out to the TV, grabbed me by the lapels here and just grabbed me and said, what are you doing? Your parents have done all this to raise you and you're doing this to them and you're so young, you got all this going on, you know you love food, you always love food, you've been around food your whole life. These are all the things that I'm interpreting and hearing in my head. And, you know, it's just like, that moment just shook me. And it just, I went to the mirror and the bathroom and just washed up and kind of, you know, that's something I've done a lot. Maybe

it's a lot. I've been able to do a lot because I moved a lot in my life. So I've been My muscle memory is is used to just pivoting on the fly A lot of people don't understand that about me like oh like they question it sometimes like oh How could you just like make that switch right there on the fly? You know, how could you just start a a taco truck like out of the blue? You know after being a chef or whatever, like all these things like they question my motives or my authenticity or my, my ability to do these things sometimes.

But um, but they don't understand that that's how I was raised. That's how I grew up, you know, like you just pivot, you know, you just, you just switch from one moment to the other. And that's what happened to me. You know, I was, I was at rock bottom. I owed people a lot of money. I burned every bridge that I could and That epiphany that moment with emerald just changed me just recoded me and I switched on the dime and um

I went back to the core of who I am which is You know smiling Being generous taking care of people I went back to the core of who I am, which is, you know, smiling, being generous, taking care of people, you know, caring about people, you know, being, you know, opening up myself and wanting to nourish people, to share anything that I had with everybody. And that's what led me to kind of figure out what it means to be a chef. I went to the bookstore, I started exploring the cookbook section. I went back and started working again and tried to repay back all my debts. I think I'm not 100%. There's still a couple people out there and if they ever hear this, I'm sorry. You know, I think I got back to

like 95% of the people that I burned the bridges with, but there's still that 5% out there that I haven't been able to correct. There's still time. Yeah, there's still time. And that's what led me to being a chef. And then once that happened, all of the things that I grew up with growing up in a restaurant, growing up in that mother's kitchen, they all just started to, to sync and connect, you know, and, and, um, so I wasn't like, I wasn't like a rookie, even though I was, when I started, you know, because all that stuff was built in me. I just, I just kept it down, you know, But when I finally allowed it to come out, I kind of like entered the

kitchen like running in a sense, you know? So- You ran toward it. Yeah. And then once I got in it, I was already like familiar with it. I was already comfortable with it and I understood it, even though it wasn't really something that I had done, you know, leading up to that, you know. And you did formal training. You actually went through and became a chef and you went through the formal training. But you've said that you sometimes have a difficult time with authority.

How do you do that when you're training? Because we've all seen, you know, that there's only one answer, yes, chef, you know, when you're told to do something a certain way. So if you have problems with authority, doesn't feel comfortable to you,, when you're told to do something a certain way. So if you have problems with authority, doesn't feel comfortable to you, how do you do that? So you get through the training and then get to the space where you can do things the way you really want to do them. Yeah, I've had a very difficult time with authority my whole life. You know, going back

to the things we talked about with anger. My dad, when I was in junior high school, he put me in military school for a year, you know, like, you know, I was a ruckus back then. And, and so it was that was, you know, I was, I was horrible back then. I couldn't handle it then all throughout high school, all throughout college, all throughout just life. I just couldn't handle anyone telling me what to do. I couldn't handle any authority. But somehow when I got to culinary school, because I had hit rock bottom, come out, been open, and changed my whole coding and entered culinary school, the thing is, and then entered kitchens, the kitchens are the best place for people with authority problems, even though it is an authoritative structure, because you find kindred spirits there. We all end up there in the kitchen because we

all have authority complexes, you know? So what happens is you end up, it's like, I guess it's like how drama kids feel with each other and find each other, you know. So what happens is you end up, it's like, I guess it's like how drama kids feel with each other and find each other, you know what I'm saying? You find your tribe. Yeah, you find your tribe, you know. It's like when I see, when I see all the musical kids and drama kids together, you know, and I see how they connect, that's how it is for us in kitchens, except we're, you, except we're like bandits on the other end that find each other because there's nowhere else left for us to go. And so we knock on

the back door of a kitchen and then you walk in and then, you know, it's like Oklahoma, you know, or it's like Les Mis, you know, and you go in and it's just like, you feel like singing and dancing because that's, you found your people. And, but also the structure itself is very good because it, how can I say it? It's a brigade structure and then culinary school is a block system culture where you have to kind of, it is very progressive in the sense that you cannot, there's no wiggle room. So the best thing sometimes for someone with an authoritative complex is to not give them

the wiggle room to argue back. Okay. A little bit like the military. A little bit like the military in a sense, but then enhance that and nourish that with things that with nutrients and things that they're doing with their hands. You know, versus the military, it's more like maybe doing wood chop or- Because you do have control. Yeah, or pottery.

You have agency over that thing that you're creating. Absolutely. And so this combination of tactical or tactile, you know, physical things that you're doing with your hands and your heart, because cooking takes your whole being. It takes your thinking, it takes your smell, taste, hands, you know, your body, takes your passion, takes all these things. And so that combined with this no wiggle room structure of like, and then this camaraderie of we're all in it together, all of those things create just like a recipe, just like

a sauce. You can't really pinpoint exactly where the tethers are, but it all comes together to make this beautiful thing. And that's really why we're able to say yes, chef. Can we talk about your cookbook for a minute? Oh, absolutely. I got it right here. I got mine too. Okay.

It's gorgeous. I mean, I love this cookbook. Big ups to your designer. Oh, yes. I love this cookbook. Big ups to your designer. Because it's so beautifully done and it's not just a cookbook. It is, I mean, it is, you know, written by someone who's been to Sorrow's Kitchen and shares the lessons from that journey. And it's a cookbook that meets you where you are. So if you are proficient in the kitchen, you're gonna love this. If you're afraid of the kitchen, you're gonna love this. If you need a little bit of help in the kitchen,

you're gonna love this. It feels like you're breaking through the third wall repeatedly and talking to the person that's actually holding the book. You begin with this whole preamble, long before we get to the recipes. There's your story, there are the things that you need in your pantry. There are a few things that I'm going to come back and ask you about because they might be unfamiliar to some people. But

you have this section called your guiding lights and finding your path. And I love your guiding lights because it's almost like I wanted to cut this out and put it on the wall. Oh, damn. You know, love for others and yourself. It feels like a Nicene Creed almost. Kindness in your heart, generosity of spirit and giving, flavor for days, fun, fun, fun in capital letters, vibrancy and vibes, health is wealth, realness of intention, care of earth technique and detail, happiness is feeding.

There it is. There it is. That's the mantra. Do you keep this in on the wall in your kitchen? Is this something you keep in your wallet with you? Has this become literally your creed in life? No, it's like it's right here. It's here.

It's right here. It's right here in my being. That's how I live life. If you work with me or in my kitchens, everyone on my team, they know this. A lot of the day starts with this touchy-feely stuff. You all talk to each other before you cook. You have just kind of a moment. Yeah, absolutely.

And it's not for everybody. There are a lot of kitchens where it's about precision. It's about technique. It's about being the best. We don't try to be the best in our kitchens, in my kitchen, you know, we just try to be loving and caring. And we just try to make people feel fed and happy, you know, like, and I'm not saying others don't do that. I'm just saying that we're not trying to be the best that that doesn't register in our in our minds in our soul. And so we the way we approach things in my network is that mantra, you know,

care for each other, love each other, make sure everyone's fed, make sure no one's missing anything, make sure we have enough for everybody, make sure we take care of each other, make sure we look out for each other, make sure you jump in when someone needs it, you know, make sure we keep tasting everything, never assume you got it done, you know, and so those are things we live by, you know. I love that every recipe, every single recipient has a story and they're often great stories. And so those are things we live by. I love that every recipe, every single recipe in here has a story and they're often great stories. And they are, the flavors are layered.

And I'm wondering if that's in some way reaches back to your mama. Because in the way that she layered flavors, when you're cooking something for a very long time, all those pots that were on the stove, that blender going all the time, you're layering flavor. And I wonder if it's also part of your multicultural experience growing up, because you were in other people's homes. So, you know, in Hispanic households, they were feeding you one thing and in Japanese household, they were feeding you something else. And an Anglo household where the family maybe came from Oklahoma, you know, maybe you were having something else. Is all of that, did all of that work its way into your style of cooking and into this cookbook?

Absolutely. There's no mistake that it's called The Joy of Cooking, you know, because it's a book that like the joy of cooking. The book is an homage to the original joy of cooking. It's to us, it's like we want it to last forever. It's a life full of recipes that have been lived through, that have been pasted together throughout life experience.

And I feel like I'm at an age and a place where You know, I have some sort of knowledge that has been built through life that these recipes like when we first started writing this book my kind of my mission or like the the mission statement of it all was like If someone were to find this book 300 years from now, like at a yard sale, that the recipes would still make sense, the stories would still make sense, because I feel like these are timeless. And that's like, I couldn't have wrote this book 10 years ago, but I feel like this is the book I was meant to write. And I hope it is,

you know, and I think I write in the book that the recipes and the flavors and everything are kind of, they're like my Watts Towers. But instead of broken glass, their life experiences and flavors that I've built up over time, a patchwork of these flavors that I piece together into this thing. And that thing, you know, is the joy of cooking, is this book. I love it. You talk about hugging food that hugs you back. You often begin, and it made me think about things, often begin with the vegetables. Like you started milk, as often

we think about, okay, I have a protein, what am I going to cook as a side? So I'm going to turn this into a soup or a stew or something like that. And I love the stories, the underwear rice, you know, which is rice that you, maybe you should tell a story, the rice that you would make when your mom was busy and you and your dad would have to like figure it out on your own. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like we've talked about my mom a lot and her cooking and the obstacle course of food. But my dad, he didn't really cook, but he cooked one thing and he cooked the underwear rice. And it was, it was when my mom wasn't, my mom was hardly

never not there, but when she wasn't there, like we were left to our own devices. And the thing that he would make, you know, in his, in his tank top, you know, in his underwear would be this rice, which is, which is rice put in the microwave with a stick of butter and you make it hot and you mix it up and you crack an egg inside and pour a little soy sauce and sesame oil. Maybe a little futakake or sesame seeds. And you know, that was like a TV dinner. That was the and you know And that was like, again, even though it's difficult to build a communicative relationship with an Asian dad, that was our communication. Sitting in the Lazy Boys together, watching TV and eating underwear rice.

That's a great, I say every one of these recipes had a great story. And speaking of recipes, we like to leave our listeners with a recipe that means something special to our guests, something that comes from their mama's kitchen. What do you want to share with us? I don't know. Did I pick one for you? I can't remember which one did I pick? I have a horrible memory.

You picked the cold noodles. Oh, the cold noodles. That's right. That's right. Yeah, you asked me to choose a recipe from the book that represented my mom. And I felt there's so many of them that do in here but I felt like that was the sharpest and most quintessential one because it combined all the elements of having to pull things together out of thin air, you know? And that's really what my mom was a master at, you know? You know, she could put full meals together. You would open, us normal folk would open the refrigerator and look and

be like, there's nothing to eat. And it would be just stacked full of stuff. And then she would just push us out of the way and then come out with like this full meal. And the cold Peeveem noodle salad was a great example of that, especially for lunch. It's a cold vermicelli noodle salad with shredded lettuce, a spicy chili paste, and a bunch of different vegetables like julienne and thinly sliced vegetables put together. It's almost like a bibimbap, but in a noodle, in a cold noodle. It's almost like a, like a Vietnamese Vermicelli noodle salad, but, but in a Korean home. And it could have all different things. It didn't have to have the same thing all the time. It could have canned corn in there.

It could have spam. It could have cucumbers. It could have bacon. It could have leftover stuff from last night. It didn't matter what was in there. It was all pulled together because of the paste and the noodles. And then you mix it all together in this big bowl. Usually the best way to eat it is in a big glass bowl, like bigger than your head.

That way you have enough room to mix everything together. And you mix it all together. And it's just the most wonderful thing to eat. It's because it hits so many different senses. It's like, it's like eating a shave ice or a sorbet. But then it's also like eating, you know, again, like a PB and Bob, or it's like eating like a mixed bag of things, but they all make sense together. It's the most glorious thing to eat. Should you make this ahead of time so it can marinate and the flavors can all blend together?

Not at all. And that's what makes it, that's why I picked this recipe because even though my mom has spent all of this time cooking food all the time, sometimes it was just these simple things that she would put together on the fly that were the most meaningful and the most that I remembered the most and also the things that I crave the most. And it's very much like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a grilled cheese sandwich or, you know, like, or a smoothie or something, like something you whip up right away, but it, like, it tastes so good, you know, and that's kind of what the cold pepian noodle salad is all about.

And I think it's the variations and the ability that it can change over time, you know, with whatever you got. And it's just so delicious. And, you know, like eating something cold, there's a different sensation when you eat cold food. You know, I'm not saying I prefer cold food over hot food, you know, hot food is still the winner, you know, but there is a feeling when you eat cold food and when it's like the right cold food. The flavor is crisp. Yeah. It just, yeah, I understand what you're saying.

Sometimes in American food, all we have is salad, sometimes it's cold food. But as you expand out and see the food of the world, there are so many other types of cold food and they just hit different, you know? They just hit different and that salad is a perfect example of that. I can't wait to share that salad with the world because as people read the book and maybe make it on their own, they're going to incorporate cold food into their life if they haven't already, you know, and cold food beyond just a salad or eating just a pickle or something like you're going to

incorporate a whole cold food extravaganza, you know, into your life. It's amazing. It may be good for one of those picnics also, since we talked about picnic culture. Picnic in a hot day. That's something that would travel really well. Oh, absolutely. Potlucks and picnics. That's a good name for a podcast, potlucks and picnics.

Okay. All right. Well, let me know when you get that started. Okay. You'll be my first guest. Roy Choi. Okay. All right. Ding ding. Happy to do it. Roy Choi, it's guest. Okay. All right.

Ding ding. Happy to do it. Roy Choi, it's been great to talk to you. Thank you so much for sharing your memories and your story and your recipes. Thank you. This was wonderful. Thank you. I have loved talking to Roy Choi.

I love the idea of hugging foods that hug you back. I love the idea of layering flavor. And I like that, actually, I love that he is so open and candid about the ups and downs in his life and how all of that has added immense flavor and texture and depth to everything that he does. I hope you find his cookbook, The Joy of Cooking and Roy again, thanks so much for being with us. Oh, thank you very much. Now before I let you go,

just want to remind you that our inbox is always, always, always open for you to record yourself and share some of your stories about your mama's kitchen, memories from your kitchen growing up, thoughts on some of the stories that your mama's kitchen, memories from your kitchen growing up, thoughts on some of the stories that you've heard here on the show, maybe some of your mama's recipes. Make sure to send us either a voice memo or a video recording at ymk at highergroundproductions.com. You can send that to ymk at highergroundproductions.com for a chance for your voice to be featured in one of the episodes or perhaps your video to be featured on Instagram or TikTok or YouTube when we start posting our

episodes there. And if you want to try making Roy's Bim Bam Noodle Salad, make sure to check out that recipe at your mamaskitchen.com. You can find all the recipes from all the previous episodes there. And for everyone else at home, I thank you so much for listening. If you're in your car, your kitchen, or on the beach, wherever you happen to be, thanks for tuning in this week. Make sure to come back next week because here at Your Mama's Kitchen, we are always serving

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