A Few Things I’ve Been Loving Lately & What I Cooked Last Week

The best Vietnamese restaurant, healthy seeded crackers, cucumber avocado crispy rice, ramen crunch salad

Hi everyone,

Hope you’re having a great week! The past few weeks have been such a whirlwind with my cookbook publishing and going on book tour. I’m so grateful to everyone who has come out to the events. It’s been really special meeting so many of you in person.

Last Wednesday, I also found out that the book is a New York Times bestseller! This was always a dream of mine, and now that it’s happened, I feel really happy and honestly a little relieved. I realized I had been putting a lot of pressure on myself during the big marketing push leading up to publication.

Part of me feels like I should take a break after moving at full speed for so long, but I’ve also been feeling really inspired lately, thinking about new recipes I want to develop and starting to brainstorm some longer-term projects. Doug and I actually just planned a trip to Thailand right after the tour wraps, which will be a really nice way to celebrate and reset.

This week, I’m sharing a few things I’ve been loving lately, including the best Vietnamese food I’ve had in the US (from one of my book tour stops!), a seeded cracker recipe I can’t stop eating, and a show I’ve been watching on my flights.

Below, you’ll also find a recipe for a ramen crunch salad my mom and I recently made. It has two kinds of cabbage, napa and red, plus lots of crunch from toasted ramen and almonds. A sesame-soy dressing gives it tons of flavor. We served it at a dinner party and everyone loved it!

As always, if you haven’t yet, you can purchase my cookbook at your local bookstore or online:

Thank you so much for your support 🤍

What I Cooked Last Week! ↓

Ramen crunch salad

My mom and I made this for a dinner party, and everyone went crazy for it. The salad is full of colorful veggies and a sesame-soy dressing. Tossed with crunchy ramen and almonds, it’s such a winner!

Ramen Crunch Salad

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You can download the PDF recipe above and watch the video here :)

A Few Things I’ve Been Loving 🤍

Vietnamese food

As you may have noticed, I really love Vietnamese food. It might even be my favorite cuisine. I love the balance in so many dishes: hearty but still light and fresh.

Before going on the book tour, I spoke with a reporter who told me about an amazing Vietnamese restaurant in Charlotte, North Carolina. So when my mom and I stopped there for my event, we decided to check it out. The place is called Lang Van, and it turned out to be some of the best Vietnamese food I’ve had in the US. Definitely better than anything I’ve tried in New York or Los Angeles.

Our favorite dish was the bánh xèo, a super crispy rice flour crêpe filled with herbs and bean sprouts. You dip it in a nước chấm sauce, which is sweet, tangy, and salty from the fish sauce.

I wish I lived closer to Lang Van!

We loved the meal so much that when we got to Seattle, we went looking for more Vietnamese food and tried Tamarind Tree. It was very good, though not quite as delicious as Lang Van. And when I got back to Los Angeles, Doug and I went to a spot in our neighborhood called Viet on Fletcher. They make a great spicy chicken pho and really good shrimp rolls.

Now I’m inspired to try recreating the bánh xèo from Lang Van, so stay tuned.

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Seeded crackers

My brother’s girlfriend gave my mom a recipe for these delicious, healthy seeded crackers. They’re incredibly simple to make. You just pour boiling water over a bunch of seeds with a little olive oil. The flaxseeds and chia seeds form a gel that binds everything together. Then you spread the mixture onto a sheet pan, sprinkle a little Parmesan and salt on top, and bake.

The yummiest seeded crackers!

They’re so nourishing and satisfying that I even brought a batch with me on my book tour to snack on between events.

Here’s the recipe: