EQ: Tell me more about cooking with your grandma.

CS: We’d walk around Flushing foraging. We had a garden where we grew tomatoes and squash. I’d help her mash garlic. Just watching her; it all smells so good, and the colors and the chili peppers, vibrant red. The process itself is tantalizing because you see things congeal, or bubble, or change color and at the end you’re treated to something delicious.

EQ: What was it like growing up in Flushing?

CS: In elementary school we had culture days, and I remember the first time I had Italian food. This guy named Billy brought his mom’s homemade Italian sauce and bread for dipping. I was hooked. I became close with my next-door neighbors from Italy. They grew tomatoes, and in their garage, three walls were just all the mom’s jarred tomato sauces. They also grew zucchini, so my first fried zucchini blossoms were from her. So, culture for me wasn’t so racialized, because they looked very white. But the culture came from them being and having immigrant parents.

It was this multicultural potluck. That tomato sauce changed my life—because Korean food was my life. I would go over to my best friend’s house. She’s Jewish, Eastern European roots, but it was her grandparents who were immigrants. So her parents were first generation. I would go there and have a mix of more standard American foods, plus Jewish foods. I remember my first matzo ball soup. Again, it changed my life!