I was born in Honolulu, Hawai ʻ i, a city overflowing with mixed Asian families and multiculturalism. My family blended right in. My dad is Chinese, born to a Cantonese American father and a Chinese Jamaican, or Hakka, mother. My mom is European, largely Norwegian on her mom’s side and German on her dad’s.
I didn’t visit any of these ancestral places until I was an adult. Instead, I connected with them through food and stories.
These family dishes gave me access to the cultural touchstones that make me who I am. The places I first tried them are inextricably tied in my mind to the places where these dishes originated—the places that made my elders. In the wake of this culinary heritage, I trace my own passage to who I am today…