Contributors

Momo Chang

Momo Chang is the Content Manager for the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM). She is an award-winning journalist covering Asian Americans, healthcare, education and media. Her stories have appeared in the East Bay Express, Oakland Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, PRI.org and has reported for Wired and The New York Times. www.momochang.com. Follow her on Twitter @momochang_oak. Check out her interview with Off the Menu: Asian America director Grace Lee.

 

Sharline Chiang

Sharline Chiang is a Berkeley-based writer, editor, and book coach. She has written for Hyphen, Mutha, BuzzFeed and OZY. Sharline is also a maternal mental health advocate and is currently writing a feature piece on Asian American women and postpartum depression for Hyphen’s next issue. She served as book coach for Brown is the New White : How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority by Steve Phillips (New Press 2016). Sharline wrote the personal essay, “It Takes Guts, and Organ Meats, to Raise a New Mom,” for Off the Menu.

Tara Dorabji headshotTara Dorabji is a writer, arts educator, mother, and radio journalist at KPFA. Her work is published or forthcoming in the Tayo Literary Magazine, Huizache, Good Girls Marry Doctors, and Midwifery Today. Tara is working on her first novel, Before We Remember, which is set in Kashmir. Her projects can be viewed at dorabji.com.

 

 

Eric Ehler

Eric Ehler is a chef currently based in San Francisco. A Korean adoptee from Iowa, Eric left home right after school to live in San Francisco, to cook and learn more about his Asian heritage. Currently, Eric is working on opening Black Sands Brewery (Lower Haight), where he will be the head chef cooking delicious food made with lots of love. Eric is featured in Off the Menu’s “Korean Adoptee Cooks Find Connection in the Kitchen” feature article. Check out his pajeonoyaki, a Japanese/Korean savory pancake, recipe.

 KakaoTalk_20150815_043228157Steve Han is a freelance journalist in New York City. He is a former staff writer at KoreAm Journal and blogs regularly for iamKoreAm.com and LA18. He also writes daily about international soccer for goal.com. Steve wrote the story, “Protecting Youth from ‘Culture of Drinking,” originally published at KoreAm.

 

 

Vanessa Hua

Vanessa Hua is a former Steinbeck Fellow in Creative Writing and recipient of the James D. Phelan Award for Fiction whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Guernica, San Francisco Chronicle, The Atlantic, and elsewhere. She considers her slow cooker her sous chef and blogs about three generations living under one roof at threeunderone.blogspot.com. Find her at @vanessa_hua and www.vanessahua.com. Vanessa wrote “Hunger,” about her immigrant mother and her relationship with food, for Off the Menu and shares her own chicken stock recipe.

unnamedNina F. Ichikawa works in food policy and was the inaugural food and agriculture editor for Hyphen magazine. Her writings has been published in Al-Jazeera America, NBC Asian America, Rafu Shimpo, Grist and Civil Eats. She twitters @ninaeats. Read her piece on Japanese American community cookbooks here.

 

 

Brian Ignacio

Brian Ignacio is a maker of things based in the Bay Area. He loves mid-century illustration, taking pictures of mundane moments of life, and reading Teen Wolf fan fiction. He currently balances working as a freelance graphic designer, illustrator and photographer, and helping out with public content at Facebook.

 

 

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Yina Kim is a San Francisco based artist and illustrator who loves to observe people’s face on the street.

 

 

Lin Kung

Lin Kung is the Festival Assistant Director at the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), where she happily spends her days playing designer, publicist, website team and film festival programmer.

 

 

unnamedAndrew Lam is an editor with New America Media and author of the “Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora,” and “East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres.” His latest book is “Birds of Paradise Lost,” a short story collection, was published in 2013 and won a Pen/Josephine Miles Literary Award in 2014 and a finalist for the California Book Award and shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing.

 

Terri LangleyTerri Langley is the Farm to Fork Coordinator for MAʻO Organic Farms, and an Organic Farm Inspector, for the Hawaiian Islands.  In her spare time she loves being a Master Gardener, a Hawaii Master Food Preserver, and cooking healthy plant based meals. Check out Terri’s vegetable curry recipe.

 

 

John Liau

John Liau is an independent Multimedia Producer from the San Francisco Bay Area. His work is grounded in documentary as he has a BA in Journalism from SFSU and an MS in Photography from the Newhouse School in Syracuse University. His clients include the Center for Asian American Media, Stanford University, WritersCorps, and the Asian Art Museum. Website: www.johnliau.com. Check out “A Family Treat,” a video he made on chocolatier Wendy Lieu for Off the Menu.

 

Andria Lo

Andria Lo is a freelance photographer who grew up in Alaska and Texas before moving to the Bay Area to study art. She never left and currently lives in Berkeley, CA. Andria took the photos for “Are Your Grandparents Being Served?

 

 

bShq_yOAp4uPR3Au3O1P-MvE2tqTfaLKEIG_-flWDJtKa23xjo48SJfEweYH9qxzBLj2TZ23jiQ_Aa_vyv8wfts10w6UvJuiifEM8SLKwtUMmKb8lfWFwyvTGksZImfdL0YLUAgWECjHZrrbLCsU9bxBnhi1c7qSshxhh5d5S2SRjM-XRpvjwFv8X0mvkF8FxvqJATUGuSyylGHN0tjTcNmsbiGThQTtyzGrace Hwang Lynch is a San Francisco Bay Area freelance writer specializing in culture and parenting. Her writing has appeared in PBS Parents, Salon, BlogHer, and Library Journal. She also writes the award-winning blog HapaMama: Asian Fusion Family and Food. Read her feature story, “Dangerous Bites: Cultural Implications of Food Allergies,” here.

 

 

Lisa Wong Macabasco

Lisa Wong Macabasco is the assistant social media editor at Slate. A former editor in chief of Hyphen magazine, she has worked for Mother Jones, Modern Farmer, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, KoreAm, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s Open City magazine, and AsianWeek. Find her at @lmacabasco and macabasco.com. Lisa wrote “Are Your Grandparents Being Served?

 

Ashlyn Perri

Ashlyn Perri is the Digital and Interactive Media associate for the Center for Asian American Media. She was born, bread and buttered in a Japalian (Japanese & Italian) household in San Francisco. Ashlyn has written about Socola chocolatier Wendy Lieu.

 

 

Matthew Salesses

Matthew Salesses is the author of The Hundred-Year Flood, which was an Amazon Best of September and Kindle First pick and a seasonal best at Buzzfeed, Refinery29, Gawker, and elsewhere. His writing on race and adoption has been published in NPR, The New York Times, Salon, The Millions, and The Rumpus, among others. He is also the author of Different Racisms and I’m Not Saying, I’m Just Saying. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Creative Writing & Literature at the University of Houston. Follow him @salesses. Read Matthew’s feature story for Off the Menu, “Korean Adoptee Cooks Find Connection in the Kitchen.”

Photo by Ash Adams.

Kim Sunée was adopted at a young age from South Korea, and raised in the Southern U.S. She has written two books: Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love, and the Search for Home (Grand Central Publishing), and most recently in 2014, A Mouthful of Stars: A Constellation of Favorite Recipes from My World Travels (Andrews McMeel). Sunée has been a guest judge on Iron Chef America and is currently a food columnist for Alaska Dispatch. She freelances as a recipe tester, editor, and food stylist. Learn more about Kim at www.kimsunee.com and follow her on Instagram. Make fresh kimchi with Kim’s recipe and learn more about her journey as a Korean adoptee chef in Korean Adoptee Cooks Find Connection in the Kitchen.

 

dianaemikotsuchida01Diana Emiko Tsuchida is working as a freelance writer and digital media strategist for the restaurant and hospitality industry in San Francisco. A Bay Area native, she has lived in Hawaii and New York and has conducted research on Asian American women in the media. She wrote Table for 8: Asian American Women Chefs You Should Know for Off the Menu. Her writing can be read at Medium: https://medium.com/@emikosworld

 

2015-06-29-Bryant-Terry-BBQ-Skewers-10Bryant Terry is a 2015 James Beard Foundation Leadership Award-winning chef, educator, and author renowned for his activism to create a healthy, just, and sustainable food system. Bryant’s fourth book, Afro Vegan: Farm-Fresh African, Caribbean, and Southern Flavors Remixed was published by Ten Speed Press/Random House April 2014. He is currently Chef-in-Residence at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco where he creates programming that celebrates the intersection of food, farming, health, activism, art, culture, and the African Diaspora. Check out Bryant’s recipe for Afro-Asian inspired tofu kebabs.

Oliver Wang

Oliver Wang is an associate professor of sociology at CSU-Long Beach. He’s the author of the new Legions of Boom: Filipino American Mobile DJ Crews in the San Francisco Bay Area (Duke University Press) and writes regularly about music and culture for NPR, KCET’s Artbound, Medium.com’s Cuepoint as well as his own site, Soul-Sides.com. Oliver wrote Off the Menu’s kickoff article, “We Are What We Eat: Asian American and Food.”

 

Sharon Wong

Sharon Wong is a mom, advocate and blogger at Nut Free Wok. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two middle school aged sons. Sharon blogs about Allergy Aware Asian Fare recipes, cooking techniques, Asian ingredients and food allergy related awareness and advocacy issues. She encourages her readers to make their own Asian foods and adapt recipes to suit their food allergy concerns. Facebook: Nut Free Wok Twitter: @NutFreeWok Pinterest: Nut Free Wok Instagram: Nut Free Wok. Sharon Wong contributed her Beef Yaki Udon recipe, and is featured in Grace Hwang Lynch’s article on the cultural implications of food allergies.

JonathanWuJonathan Wu received a degree in English from the University of Chicago in 2001. Upon graduation he decided to pursue his passion for food and embarked on an intense period of culinary study. He attended The French Culinary Institute and has worked in France, Span, and Italy. In New York, he was previously the executive sous chef of Geisha before working as a chef de partie at Per Se. At Fung Tu, Jonathan Wu serves food that combines home-cooked Chinese flavors with seasonal, regional ingredients. Jonathan and his business partner, Wilson Tang, are featured in the documentary, Off the Menu: Asian America. He shares with us his steamed fish recipe.

Alison Yin

Alison Yin is a freelance photographer in the Bay Area.  She holds a BA in Journalism from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and got her start in photography from newspapers.  Alison lives in Oakland with her husband and pup, and she enjoys spending time outside, hiking and cooking.  She grows as much of her own food as possible. www.alisonyin.com Instagram: @alisonyinphoto Twitter: @alisonyinphoto. Alison took photos for the feature story, “Dangerous Bites: Cultural Implications of Food Allergies.”

IreneIrene Yadao is a freelance writer and editor who made her way to Maine eight years ago by way of San Diego, New York, and New Mexico. She has written and edited for the likes of The Village Voice and the San Diego Union-Tribune, and currently pens profiles for Maine and Old Port magazines, as well as food pieces for the EatMaine blog. She studied journalism at San Diego State University and earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Naropa University. Irene is a member of the Steel House in Rockland and is working on a web-based project about the experience of growing up as a twin. When not at her computer, she plays roller derby for the Rock Coast Rollers. Irene, with her sister Lisa, wrote Filipino American Food: Finally, The Next Big Thing?

LisaLisa Yadao is Business Affairs Administrator for the video and photo teams at Square, and also serves as Contracts Manager for the Center for Asian American Media. She was born in Honolulu, two minutes before Irene, and was raised in San Diego, where she received a BA in English at San Diego State University. Most recently, she studied Video Production at Bay Area Video Coalition, and is a member of the Scary Cow film co-op in San Francisco. In her downtime, she enjoys screenwriting, working film festivals, and eating her way through SF and various parts of the globe. Lisa, along with her sister Irene, wrote Filipino American Food: Finally, The Next Big Thing?

Find the Off the Menu: Asian America documentary crew bios here.