The House Specials

This is part 2 of a 2 part series. In part 1, we spoke with Nicole on the eve of her pilgrimage to Brazil - where she was going to spend a couple of months with her grandparents, to learn more about her family’s journey from Hong Kong to Brazil. In part 2, we catch up with Nicole Chan to see how her trip went and what she was able to discover about her family's history.

Yewande Komolafe is a food writer, recipe developer, food stylist, and soon-to-be cookbook author. For many years, she lived in the US as an undocumented immigrant and had to mute parts of her Nigerian identity — which included the food. We speak with her about how through reconnecting with Nigerian food, she is able to explore her roots and reclaim that part of her identity.

In this special panel discussion episode, we speak with three of the most passionate and hard-working women in the food biz: Chitra Agrawal of Brooklyn Delhi, Leetal Arazi of NY SHUK and Sana Javeri Kadri of Diaspora Co. Each of these trailblazers have created a culinary brand that represents the food of their culture. They chat with us about the importance of preserving flavors and traditions as ingredients move about the world.

We speak with Daisy Orlana, owner of the New York based Indonesian food pop-up Sayang. She discusses with us about the loneliness of navigating the US as an adult immigrant, and how that led her back to the Indonesian food of her youth.

For Nancy Pappas, a Korean adoptee who grew up with a classic Midwestern American upbringing, her Asian identity was not something she had always embraced. Over the past few years, Nancy has reckoned with her cultural identity, culminating in an important pilgrimage to Seoul, where she will study the Korean language and get to know her birth mother and sister. We speak with Nancy ahead of the move.

This is part 1 of a 2 part series. We meet Nicole Chan as she embarks on a "research trip" of sorts, temporarily relocating from New York to Brazil to live with her grandparents—to witness their daily routines, record the way they eat, and learn more about her family's passage from Hong Kong, to Brazil and beyond.

Mark your calendars. We're back next week with a brand new season of The House Specials. Every episode this season will be dedicated to one topic: immigrants. Throughout this season you’ll hear from home cooks, writers, artists, and entrepreneurs. Every guest has a unique immigration story and we will explore how the foods they cook, eat and share with others, keeps them connected to their respective homelands and to their cultural roots. Season 2 begins December 2nd. See you then.

While wandering through the aisles of a local supermarket, Ariel Barnes revisits her childhood memories of school lunch and the politics of the food we eat as children. She remembers the neatly packed lunches that her mother used to pack her and the loving notes left in her lunchbox. And then she remembers the day these lunches and notes suddenly disappeared. Take a walk with us down memory lane as we explore with Ariel the power of food as an expression of love, loss and longing.

This episode is part 2 of a 2 part series on tomato and egg, a classic homestyle dish that has come to represent so much for children of Chinese immigrants. Modern day nomad, Jeremy Leung, attempts to make his mother’s tomato and egg for the very first time in his life. In doing so, he discovers how her iconic dish has been changed and adapted over the years to create the perfect marriage between East and West. In this episode, we discuss his experience of moving from Hong Kong to Melbourne as a child and explore the triumphs and challenges that come with trying to fit in and remain connected to your cultural heritage after moving to a new country.

This episode is part 1 of a 2 part series on tomato and egg, a classic homestyle dish that has come to represent so much for children of Chinese immigrants. When Szeki Chan first moved to New York City from Hong Kong as a college student, she left behind her family and life as she knew it. While it’s been over a decade since she left Hong Kong, Szeki still yearns for her mother's cooking and the comfort it brings. Now raising her own family in her adopted homeland, we visit Szeki in her East Village apartment to cook her mother’s humble stir-fried tomato and egg, the dish that still tastes like home.

In this episode, we learn about the power that the humble grain of rice has in opening up larger conversations. We travel to Randall’s Island Park to visit horticulturist and rice pioneer EunYoung Sebazco whose passion for rice led her to create one of the only known rice paddies in New York City. We learn about her journey in creating the rice paddies—how she managed to do so in an urban setting using a single book and her grandmother’s wisdom—as well as the unexpected discovery about her own family that she stumbled upon along the way.

When Katia Kelly inherits a sacred family heirloom - her mother’s recipe book filled with hand-written recipes and notes - it opens up a discussion about the important role home cooking plays in helping preserve one’s history and culture. Over a pot of English breakfast tea, we discuss Katia’s journey from Germany to France and then the United States, where she eventually settles in the sleepy neighborhood of Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn, New York. From condensed milk to linzer torte, we learn about the way recipes can represent a progression of our lives. Katia teaches us that no matter how much changes in the world around us, we can always stay connected to our memories and life experiences through the simple act of cooking.