Had a lovely Sunday baking with Philadelphia Cream Cheese. The Philly team got in touch asking if I’d be interested in collaborating on a recipe and seeing as it is my favourite brand of cream cheese, how can a food blogger say no? My husband loves to make cinnamon buns and with his guidance I made a batch using matcha instead of cinnamon as a filling, then slathered with Philadelphia Cream Cheese whipped with vanilla. If you’ve never used matcha before – find out more about this earthy gem on my Frozen Matcha, Coconut and Sago pudding recipe. Make something rad with Philad ..read more

Now that my book launch is over, I can do the grossly soppy ‘thank you’s. Here’s a post on the process, including all those that contributed to the creation of my new cookbook Just Add Rice – stories and recipes by a Taiwanese South African. Just Add Rice is a proudly local food title by a first generation Taiwanese immigrant, raised and living in South Africa. It’s the first South African East and Southeast Asian cookbook produced by a local from one of the cultural communities and includes stories of identity and culture. It is a celebration of food, family and cultural preservation as ..read more

This Cape Town based family runs a fishing business, servicing the restaurant, hospitality and wholesale industry. Offering some rad seasonal and locally sourced fish and seafood they fondly dubbed Greenfish Boxes. Now, with the COVID-19 lockdown in South Africa, Green Fish has decided to extend their services and now offer fresh fish and other seafood directly from the ocean to anybody’s home in less than 24 hours with a direct delivery service in Cape Town. Check if they deliver to your area here. Place your order and use my code: BUTTERFINGERS10 and get 10% off your tuna, linefish, sq ..read more

Warm Lemon and Rosemary Pudding Cakes with Seedless LemonGold This recipe is a collaboration with LemonGold, new product by my favourites ClemenGold. These lemons are completely seedless – great for juicing and candying (the segments aren’t cratered since they’re pipless), and are available at Woolworths. Lockdown has got so many of us baking and I’m loving it, it’s been a joy to see everyone having fun in the kitchen. So while living in limbo at my sister’s (before I eventually relocate to California) the weather has started to change. Winter is coming, and I wanted to make Sansa’s lemon cak ..read more

Kyle and I were fortunate enough to conceive in September 2018 and we’re expecting around 20 June 2019. I’ve been using #babybao2019 on social media pregnancy diary, mostly on Instagram and Twitter. We chose ‘Bao’ as the fetus’ nickname as the meaning of ‘bao’ in Mandarin means ‘bun’ (包) like the foods; baozi 包子 and gua bao (pronunciation for cut bun in Hokkien). But punny enough, bao 寶 which is phonetically similar means ‘treasure’ and when doubled 寶寶 is conversationally used for ‘baby’. Being people who don’t enjoy a fuss, Kyle and I opted to get married without engagement parties, kitchen ..read more

Saturday, 17 November 2018, at Bridge Books Maboneng The conversation and signing at Maboneng took place at an independent bookshop in Johannesburg called Bridge Books at 274 Fox St, organised through Tshepo, Griffin and the team. The wonderful people at Sir Fruit (for the fresh juices and ice teas) and Vinimark Wine who sponsored the beverages for the event, and my dear mama made kimbap I flew up with so we could have some snacks. Please show them some love on social media. BRIDGE BOOKS – FB, Twitter & IG SIR FRUIT – FB, Twitter & IG VINIMARK WINE – FB, Twitter & IG ..read more

Had an excellent Sunday, 30 September 2018, celebrating International Coffee Day with NESCAFÉ at Nasdak, the rooftop of the Media24 building They hosted two rooftop parties (one in Johannesburg on Saturday 29th and Cape Town 30th) in partnership with Kool Out and Feel Good Series launching Everyday People in South Africa, and a lineup of local DJs such as Akio, C-live, P-Kuttah, Mystikal Ebony, Score, Amazon and international DJs Moma, and Rich Knight. NESCAFÉ activations making a variety of tasty drinks, think creamy iced coffees, coffee based cocktails and my favouri ..read more

Since I moved to Cape Town and discovered the Western Province Chinese Association‘s Spring Food Fair, I like to attend and stuff my face with Chinese treats and spend some time catching up with familiar faces in the East Asian community here in Cape Town. For this year’s event, I’ve been invited by the association to do a demonstration on some recipes from my cookbook, Just Add Rice – stories and recipes by a Taiwanese South African. I have chosen to do a cold vegetarian selection of three dishes for spring. Entrance to the Spring Food Fair is free, and it costs R20 to catch the demonst ..read more

After receiving an invitation to be a panelist for Open Book Festival from the organisers (Mervyn and Frankie), I must say I had to reread the mail a few times just to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. Soon, my author profile was live and it was official. I was invited to be a panelist for three talks: 1. Feminism Is – Listening Room, 2. Turning Points on defining moments on our journeys and 3. Food on the Page about Just Add Rice – stories and recipes by a Taiwanese South African. These talks reflected the discussions I try to have with family, friends, and offer as tailored presentation ..read more

Last month, I was invited to be a guest speaker at CreativeMornings hosted at Friends of Design in town on the 27th of July 2018. Creative Mornings is a global platform of breakfast lecture series for the creative community, and you can find all their previous talks on their website. Cape Town is one of the cities. The local event host is Philipp Schmid, whom I met a few years back during my roller derby days, asked me to speak at July’s breakfast for the theme ‘INTENTION’. I chose to talk about INTENT VS EFFECT and IMPACT on stereotyping in media. Thank you to Leigh Andrews, from Bi ..read more