Kitchen Chat — Night Market 2021 🍴
APASA’s Kitchen Chat, as told from the perspectives of APASA interns Emma Hsu and Sara Zhang.
Though the pandemic prevented us from walking through the traditional APASA annual Night Market, we were still able to fill our homes with the delicious smell of Kadhi and learn from the best of the best, Sohla El-Waylly and Priya Krishna!
After nights of constant deliberation of what the event should look like, the committee landed on a discussion about the intersection of the culinary world with our APIDA identities as well as cook-along led by our celebrity guests! Sohla is a professional chef and recipe developer currently working with Andrew Rea at the Babish Culinary Universe and producing food media on various online platforms. Priya is a food reporter for the New York Times and the New Yorker and has published a cookbook entitled Indian-ish.
I (Emma), along with my fellow interns, Evelyn and Mythili, moderated the questions during the audience QnA segment and throughout the cooking demonstrations. It was a night of warm uwus as the audience engaged with our guests and made delicious comfort food. And I (Sara) very much starstruck by our amazing guests and secretly enjoyed watching a certain co-RD struggle along the way. (More on that later…)
PROFESSOR MODERATED SEGMENT
Professor Adrian De Leon is a writer and educator at the University of Southern California, where he is an Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity. At USC, he teaches and researches in the field of Asian American Studies. Professor De Leon moderated the first discussion segment with questions ranging from Priya and Sohla’s cooking philosophy to more light-hearted ones such as what is the first meal that they would make for their family after the pandemic.
This segment commenced with the clink of Priya, Sohla, and Professor De Leon’s beverages to loosen up the mood. Instead of asking Priya and Sohla to introduce themselves and their culinary background, Professor De Leon took the unique approach of asking Priya and Sohla to introduce each other! Thus, their introductions were filled with compliments of their culinary accomplishments and milestones in their friendship. It was very heartwarming for us to see how much Priya and Sohla adore each other and are so passionate about the power that food has in bringing people together.
In this segment, Priya and Sohla discussed their experiences of pursuing a more artistic career that many APIDA communities tend to engage with less frequently. Specifically, Priya discussed how she acknowledges that she comes from a privileged position where her family was able to financially support her through her culinary pursuits. They also discussed how many people view cuisines as monolithic, which has led both of them to experience immense pressure (even almost a burden) to represent and be an expert of their respective cuisines. They hope to see the concept of a cuisine allow for more fluidity in the future—to them, a cuisine is a broad entity that consists of immensely diverse dishes rather than a category with dishes that all share a common characteristic.
AUDIENCE Q&A
In this segment, Mythili and I (Emma) moderated questions from the audience! There were 30+ questions submitted, but because of the time allotted for this segment, we were only able to ask around 10 questions. Here are some highlights!
When Irene and Brigid from the audience asked for their advice on how to learn a variety of cuisines on a college student budget, Sohla recommended having themed months. For example, for January, explore Chinese food and buy those specialty ingredients instead of buying specialty ingredients from multiple cuisines at once.
Another participant asked if Sohla and Priya have allergies, and if so, how did they work around them when they develop recipes. Thankfully, Priya does not have any allergies, but Sohla has a few secret ones. Initially, Sohla’s allergies held her back from experimenting with different recipes, but as she fantasized about what these dishes would taste like, she got creative and overcame her obstacles! Without her allergies, Sohla would not have been so passionate about recipe development and cooking.
When Serena Zhu asked the question if only given the option to eat off of unconventional containers, Sohla would choose a cutting board (for easy clean-up) and Priya chose a half/quarter sheet because she uses sheets to make so many dishes!
COOKING DEMO
THE COOKING BEGINS!
The dish slated for tonight was Priya’s recipe for Kadhi, a turmeric-yogurt soup filled with tang and zest! This comfort food brought us all together as we all fired up our stoves and filled our kitchens with the delightful aromas of our spices. Through Evelyn and my (Emma) moderation we were able to learn some fun facts and life hacks (unintentional rhyme :o) from Kitchen Chat:
FUN FACT: Sohla’s favorite kitchen tool is a tiny spatula whereas Priya’s is her mom’s very fancy and rare garlic press from the 80s! (Garlic press stans rise up!)
FUN FACT: Everyone needs a lil SPICE in their life! Sohla’s favorite spices change often but as of Friday, April 2nd, her spices of choice were cinnamon (mixed in your daily cuppa joe) and silk chili. Priya’s favorite spices were cardamom and cumin — two very yummy selections!!
FUN FACT: Here’s some first date advice if you’re dining with someone special! 👀 Priya’s suggestion is to try something that requires you to work together!! (Teamwork makes the dream work!) Sohla recommends eating something that requires using your hands. (Imagine the romance of feeding each other!)
LIFE HACK: When a recipe says to not use greek yogurt… DON’T USE GREEK YOGURT! (Greek yogurt and regular yogurt are two completely different things!)
LIFE HACK: Wanna keep your white stovetop clean and pristine? Get a dad that will immediately SCRUB DOWN your white stove once you finish cooking.
LIFE HACK: You can’t have two people break down one turkey. (A quote from Sohla: “That’s how you lose limbs.” Human limbs? Turkey limbs? Guess we’ll never know)
While Sohla and Priya were ever so graceful in the kitchen, some of our participants were perhaps… not so elegant. Our very own Gabriel Chen stole the show with his impassioned endeavors to keep up with the demo. (If you remember from Sip of SC, he is QUITE the kitchen master.) Sohla then bestowed upon him seven words of encouragement that we will never forget: “If it ends up terrible, that’s fine!” In the end, Gabe was able to come out with a heavenly bowl of Kadhi.
We would like to applaud all participants (especially Gabe) for conquering yet another culinary APASA experience.
CONCLUSION
The night was filled with lots of laughter and delightful food but also very meaningful discussions of our stories and experiences as a part of the APIDA diaspora. Needless to say, all of the audience members thoroughly enjoyed the event and gained insights into new aspects of the APIDA experience discourse.
We would like to congratulate the participants who won Salt, Acid, Heat and Priya’s cookbook, Indian-ish, from cooking-along! We would like to shout out APASA’s directors, Kimberly Phung and Patrick Fang for working tirelessly to secure our amazing celebrity guests and our Programming Director, Josh Lu for the unconventional and engaging approach to APASA’s Night Market, and all the members of the Night Market committee that contributed to the success of the event! We hope to see you out at next year’s APASA Night Market! :3
