My Trip Home to Visit My Parents & What I Cooked Last Week

Everything I cooked with my mom, chicken Parm sandwich, lemon possets, crispy Vietnamese spring rolls

Hi everyone,

Hope you’re having a great week! Earlier this month, I flew from Los Angeles to San Francisco to visit my parents because my dad had shoulder surgery (he’s doing well!). I wanted to be there to support him and spend some quality time with my mom. Naturally, we ended up cooking a lot together.

Always so happy when we’re together!

Today, I’m sharing everything my mom and I got up to while I was home, including a delicious Hong Kong–style chow mein we made, a great hot pot restaurant we discovered, and a few of the fun things we did together.

First, here’s a recipe for crispy spring rolls my mom and I recently made. We discovered a great trick for getting them extra golden and crispy: soaking the rice paper in lightly sugared water so the sugar caramelizes as they cook. Filled with vegetables and served wrapped in fresh lettuce and mint, they’re the perfect balance of light, fresh, and rich. We can’t wait for you to try them!

As always, my cookbook Maxi’s Kitchen is now available for purchase at your local bookstore or online:

Thank you so much for your support 🤍

What I Cooked Last Week! ↓

Crispy Vietnamese Spring Rolls

The secret to the golden brown crust on these spring rolls is soaking the rice paper in sugar water, which caramelizes as it cooks. Wrap with lettuce and dip into a sweet-sour sauce.

Crispy Vietnamese Spring Rolls

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

My Trip Home, Everything I Cooked with My Mom & What We Did for Fun

In the days leading up to the trip, my mom and I were calling and texting each other, brainstorming recipe ideas while I typed them into the notes app on my phone. That’s how I keep track of new ideas. Anytime something comes to me, I add it to the list, and on days when I don’t know exactly what I want to cook, I scroll through it for inspiration.

When I cook with my mom, we usually manage to squeeze in around three recipes a day. This time, since she was also working (more on that later), we filmed fewer recipes overall, though we still got a lot done.

On my first day home, we started by making crispy Vietnamese spring rolls. We decided on a vegetable filling with mung bean noodles, shiitake mushrooms, and carrot, then shallow-fried them until super crisp. We also tried a clever hack we’d recently learned: adding a little sugar to the water used for soaking the rice paper. As the rolls fry, the sugar caramelizes and gives them that deep golden color.

The spring rolls turned out so well, and it was especially fun because neither of us had made them before. (You can find the recipe here!) Developing recipes together is always a true collaboration. We go back and forth on every ingredient and step, constantly asking each other how we can simplify things without sacrificing flavor. If we can make something really delicious with fewer ingredients, that always feels like a win.

After that, we took a little break and went to my mom’s Pilates class. She’s been doing Pilates for over 20 years and completely swears by it. Since I also go twice a week in LA, it was fun to join her. When we got home, we filmed two more recipes: a broccoli bake and mango sticky rice sushi.

We both love Pilates!

The broccoli bake didn’t quite work the way I wanted. We used frozen broccoli tossed with breadcrumbs, cheese, butter, and topped with lots of Parmesan, but the cheese didn’t melt properly and the whole thing just didn’t feel special enough to share with you yet. That’s part of recipe development though. Sometimes you need another test.

The last recipe of the day was much more successful: mango sticky rice sushi. Ever since Thailand, I’ve been completely obsessed with mango sticky rice, and since my mom loves it too, we thought it would be fun to turn it into little mango sticky rice nigiri that you dip into coconut sauce.

Mango sticky rice sushi 😋

For dinner, we made my dad’s pork chops with soy sauce and red onions, which he specifically requested. The recipe is in the Monday chapter of my cookbook (page 38)!

Later that evening, we were craving something sweet, so we went out for frozen yogurt. After cooking for hours, I always like an excuse to leave the house.