Worst Quality Crab

Our first live episode! This one is doubly special as we did our first live episode AND celebrated Lunar New Year with a panel of illustrious guests. Thank you to KALW for featuring us as part of their Bay Made series and thank you to guests Margot Seeto, Eric Ehler, and Deanna Ulrich for joining us to talk about their Lunar New Year traditions as kids and what LNY means to them as adults. Special...

It’s Thanksgiving in February on this episode! We talk with author and coach Tracey Gee about turkey jook, something so beloved by her and her family, and special to our family that we couldn’t dare pass this one up, no matter the time of year. We talk about the origins of Thanksgiving turkey in Tracey’s household growing up, her very thoughtful method for making it vs our arguably slap-dash way,...

This ain’t your mother’s bao! But it *is* Jessica’s grandmother’s bao! On this episode we talk to pastry chef Jessica Fu about her grandmother’s special bao, filled with pork, spices, and secret ingredient vermicelli. This one is so special that between the three of us, none of us have ever seen it on a menu or out in the wild! We talk about where this dish came from and whether or not Jessica’s g...

We should really stop pretending like we don’t do holiday episodes because whoops we actually love them. We’re back with a holiday x new cookbook x baking for a cause episode with Hetal Vasavada , author of Milk and Cardamom and Desi Bakes, founder of baking pop up Milk and Cardamom, and former Master Chef contestant. What started with a pitch for butter (not that we have a problem with that! It’s...

On this episode we’re talking to author Ellie Yang Camp about her new book Louder Than The Lies: Asian American Identity, Solidarity, and Self-Love , and just as importantly, we talk about soups!! Yes, not one, but two family soups: beef noodle soup made by her dad, and chicken broth made by her mom.  We talk about growing up Taiwanese American in not-so-Asian California suburbs, chasing taste mem...

On this post-election one we present our first ever disliked dish, because apparently there are no rules anymore. This was meant to be a revenge episode with Eli Beutel , but instead of raging against this German Christmas dish, stollen, they were the consummate food and alcohol historian—and still funny!  We talk about the history of this dish, why they hate it, and why it’s still important to sh...

On this episode we’re talking to fellow podcaster Curtis Chinn, host of the InfatuAsian podcast . His podcast is dedicated to Asian American creators and the culture we all know and love, so naturally we had a lot to talk about. Curtis brings a non-recipe recipe in the form of potstickers, which for him were less family recipe and more college party trick.  We talk about being a multi-generation C...

There’s no recipe on this episode, instead we talk about a whole dang cookbook! We could not be more thrilled to have guest Kristina Cho , James Beard Award winner, creator of EatChoFood, author of a New York Times Top 10 Best Cookbooks of 2022 Mooncakes and Milk Bread and forthcoming cookbook Chinese Enough!  We talk with Kristina about how Chinese Enough came to be, some of her favorite recipes...

We’re back! (Whoops, life!) On this episode we get a little San Francisco-y with native San Franciscan Alisa Wong and her dad’s tomato beef over rice. We talk about the impalpable specificity of being an ABC San Franciscan and try as we might, we never land on what exactly makes us feel that way. (We’re open to your thoughts on that, friends!) Given the saucy nature of tomato beef, we of course ta...

On this episode it’s another blast from high school past with our first Thai guest Nina Meechoonuk, talking about her childhood fave, tod mun pla, aka Thai fishcake. For Nina, this one has had staying power into adulthood and even into her kid’s Thai food rotation. While Freesia and Nina have been friends since high school, they never really talked about Nina’s experience of being Thai–until now!...

On this episode we’re chatting with Sam Lugtu, sister of past guest Nicole Lugtu, about her favorite childhood dish, nilaga. We talk about nilaga as a weekly meal vs a special occasion meal, never ordering the things that mean the most to you in restaurants, and the must-order restaurant dishes that are the barometer for everything else.  Plus cooking this Filipino stew for a very French family, w...

Whoops! We were away too long. But we’re back and we love this one! We’re joined by return guest Jin Yoo-Kim talking about miyeokguk aka seaweed soup aka birthday soup. Since miyeokguk is a postpartum dish as well as an everyday dish, in this episode we dive deep into its role before and after baby arrives. We talk about nourishing mom and the ripple effects to the rest of the family, postpartum a...

Happy AANHPI Heritage Month and Happy Anniversary to us! We can’t believe it’s been a whole year of doing this show. In this guestless episode, we sit down for our annual performance review and talk about what it’s been like this year and what we hope for in the future. Turns out we want to hear more from you! Plus we soft launch our Buy Me A Coffee and some probable forthcoming WQC stickers. 

Hold on to your butts! Your pork butts that is. This episode, guest Brian Tom brings us his family’s recipe for Kalua Pig and we’re very excited about it. For Brian’s family, this seemingly easy, low maintenance recipe became a family affair. We talk about roles in the kitchen, letting kids be leaders of their domain, and connections to Hawaii but from far away Massachusetts.  We talk about making...

It’s finally happened!! This episode we have our first dessert! On this one we’re joined by Lorraine Esturas-Pierson as she talks about her favorite childhood dessert, halo-halo, a Filipino dish that means mix mix. We talk about why halo-halo might be the most equitable and inclusive of all group desserts and how that was a huge benefit growing up in a LARGE household.  We talk about the inevitabi...

We’ve talked a lot about Chinese restaurants in past episodes. On this one we’re getting a look into the kitchen from our guest and former restaurant kid Julia Louie. We hear what it’s like to grow up in a Chinese restaurant, the privileges and obligations of the owner’s kid, and code/mode-switching between family work life and outside life.  We talk about Americanized Chinese food and try to figu...

This episode we’re joined by Vincent Beck, Bay Area creative and street photographer , and it is eggs-cellent! Fluffy eggs-cellent to be exact! He shares his mom’s recipe for iritamago, a sweet and fluffy egg dish served over rice.  We talk about growing up a bi-racial military kid, hometown vs home, and making up for lost time with culture and connection. Plus a few potentially hot takes on Japan...

Valentine’s Day might be behind us but we’re here telling the love story between our guest Nicole Lugtu and her fave dish tinola. Or maybe more accurately, the love between Nicole and chicken. Listen in as Nicole and Sam talk about their shared love of chicken and the myriad ways that manifests in life: as a personality trait, red flags and relationship dealbreakers, familial dividing lines. We ta...

We’re baaaack!! Wooo! We did not mean to be away for so long but cold and flu season absolutely wrecked all of December. But we’re back with a follow up to our SPAM episode and we’re joined by special guest Jaime Sunwoo , creator of Specially Processed American Me . In this special second edition spam-isode, we talk about Jaime’s performance film, the signature dishes of what she calls the Spam Di...

We’re forever celebrating the everyday dishes, but we just couldn’t help ourselves getting in on a little holiday cheer! This episode we’re joined by Ken Cho, bringing us his favorite holiday dish, Mom’s Thanksgiving Stuffing. We talk about growing up “All-American” in the 80s, canned soups on everything, and raising hapa kids.  We dig into what it’s like to go from shame and disgust of Korean foo...

This episode we’re joined by Neha Gautam , filmmaker, photographer, educator and writer director of Passenger Seat , bringing us paratha, or more specifically her childhood version of paneer stuffed paratha with ketchup because kid palette.  We talk about “Indian pizza” as a specific and universal tactic for feeding kids, classic 90s kid lunches (fold over sandwich bags anyone??), and roti as a sy...

In this episode we’re joined by Shaun Garcia, husband, father and noodle soup connoisseur about his fave soup and classic Filipino dish, Sinigang, which doesn’t happen to have noodles, in case you’re wondering! We talk about growing up in the clean plate club, feeding a toddler what you’re eating (hopefully!), and inventing a dish in high school that was really not a unique invention in any way sh...

In a slight deviation in programming, we’re sneaking in at the end of Hispanic Heritage Month with our first non-Asian guest! This episode we bring on long time friend of Freesia’s and #1 WQC super fan Nicole Fox. Despite her non-Asianness Nicole almost always finds something relatable to her own life and experiences in our episodes. Because maybe food is the great equalizer and maybe growing up n...

This is a spicy one! No really, the dish is spicy. On this episode we talk to Christian Wu about his mom’s Mapo Tofu, something so relatable, and so beloved by Christian, and honestly his mom’s version sounds way better than ours. Join us as we talk about being a third culture kid–growing up in both Tijuana and San Diego– growing up in a restaurant, and what parents can take away from hyper indepe...

For this momentous 10th episode, we’re putting recipes aside to talk about the great Asian and Asian American uniter, SPAM! Our guests are writer Margot Seeto and filmmaker Jin Yoo-Kim, creators of SPAMFIGHT!, a short film inspired by a love of Spam. We talk about our childhood memories of Spam and the creative ways we’re eating it today. We also talk about the ways die hard Spam fans celebrate th...