How Grace Young Uses Food to Fight for Chinatowns Everywhere | In The Test Kitchen

If you could teach the home cooks of America one thing that they're missing that they should know, what would that be? Oh, these are all easy questions. Oh, my God. I was like, uh-oh. Uh-oh. What? This is like. Sometimes I ask weirder ones. Final exam time. I'm going to, like, fail, like, miserably here. Of course, everyone has to learn how to stir fry. Mm-hmm. I'm the stir fry guru, right? It's true. I'm Dan Souza and today I'm joined by my co-host and good friend Lon Lamb and we are in the test kitchen. Hi Lon. Hey Dan. I feel like we hang out all the time. Yeah. But our best hangs in my opinion are when we go to the bar. Did you see that coming? A little bit. So like we spend lots of time in the test kitchen but we you know you talk about different things when you go to the bar. You sit down and you order drinks and you talk about other stuff but I have learned so much At bars, I thought I was totally fine at ordering drinks and stuff like that, but you laid out, I think the last time we were grabbing a drink at Chickadee, which is a wonderful restaurant bar here, your guide to... ordering really good drinks at new bars, like walking into a bar and figuring out if it's good and then what to order at that bar. And I want you to share that with like the world because it actually impacted me. I'm a little bit worried about what this says about the amount of time I spend at bars. I mean, too late, too late for that. Just analytical. Yeah. Yes, exactly. You have a great approach to everything. And I think this is the same. Yeah. So I look for a couple A couple of very specific things, like... I check out the glassware because I want to make, I hate it when I'm served something and you pick up the glass and it's warm because then your drink is going to be so much warmer than it needs to be. And you've got to throw it back or just drink a warm cocktail, which is no good. Thank So you're looking at like the type of glassware or specifically like, is it in the freezer or are they like chilling it with ice water? Exactly. And like, you know, you can kind of get away with being a little bit, um, Looser about where you're storing glassware when it's the really nice stuff that's really thin because that stuff cools so quickly you. that you don't have to store it in like the fridge, but if it's like Really sturdy, heavy stemware, which a lot of restaurants have because that stuff is harder to break. I really do want to see that chilled. That's a really good one. And it's particularly important for drinks that don't have ice in the finished drink, right? Like if there's ice in there, it's continually cooling. But even still, you're getting dilution and it's going to be more watery than you want. It has to be cold. It has to be cold. Okay. So cold barware, cold glassware. I want... Oh, this one's so specific. I want the bartenders to be mixing and stirring with confidence for the right amount of time. All right. I love it. It's not even just the right amount of time. It's like you want a certain amount of confidence. I just want to understand at a glance that they know what they're doing because otherwise, why am I going to spend the money? Yeah. No, no. I think that's great. And so do you like when people are like shaking drinks, like a lot of style and sort of flair to it? No. Okay. No, it's not about the flair. Like if they're stirring. I'm looking for, like, a smooth motion. If it's a quiet bar, then I don't want to hear the stirring. Yep. When it comes to shaking, I'm kind of looking for kind of enough vigorous motion that I know that the ice is really sloshing around and, like, aerating the drink properly. I want to see. It should look great. They should have a rhythm. We have this gorgeous book, Cocktails Illustrated, 400 recipes. This is a gorgeous, gorgeous cocktail book that is so functional and useful. We have these amazing spreads on science and a lot of really granular details. At the same time, we have a brand new YouTube show out called The Cocktail Lab with Joe Gitter that you worked on as well. So fun and sciencey and like, so America's test kitchen. What's, what's some of your favorite stuff kind of from the book and what you've learned from the series? Um, gosh, what have I, I, I, I actually think some of the most exciting stuff is kind of tucked away in between, um, the big flashier cocktails and it's all the zero proof stuff. I learned so much about, um, How building a drink works, and once you sort of start to figure out what stirring or shaking or ice and changes in temperature are going to do to flavors, and once you learn about how texture matters, your ability to build, make up your own thing. Just, I don't know, for the longest time, cocktails kind of baffled me. You would taste a spirit straight, and then it would get mixed into a thing, and it would just totally change, and now I'm, like, getting a handle on it, and, um... It's in the NA stuff that I'm feeling the most space to play. I love that. And the book actually has 50 zero-proof cocktails in it. So it's almost got its own little cookbook about that in there. And I think they found some interesting stuff about getting those textures and stuff that you would get without alcohol. So I absolutely love that. On the boozier side of things, in the Cocktail Lab, one of the first episodes is about temping a stirred drink, which sounds like the nerdiest thing ever. But it's a really good indicator of if you get it down to a certain temperature that you have the right dilution because people stir drinks like sometimes they'll stir for like 20 seconds and then it's like not cold enough. It's not diluted enough. And so Joe is in the video using like a thermometer, like a digital thermometer to actually stir the drink, which is like a wild thing to see. But it's so us and I've been trying it at home and it absolutely does make a better drink. It absolutely works, and it lets you dial in a cocktail to what you want. Maybe the perfect cocktail, according to my favorite bartender, is 30% dilute, but you want something stronger. You're going to want to stir a little bit less. It'll be a higher temperature. You'll have a little less water in there, and you can have fun experimenting and figuring out. What your perfect martini is. Yeah, absolutely. So we're going to get a drink really soon and continue our conversations and nerding out. But right now we have a wonderful guest to welcome to the Test Kitchen. I think both of us have a deep connection to her. She's one of our favorite people in the food world. So this is like the best day ever. So our guest today in the Test Kitchen is an award-winning cookbook author. She is an activist. She is a huge advocate for Chinatowns and Chinese restaurants across this country. She's also known as the Stir Fry Guru, and she's a Wok Whisperer. She is one of the most accoladed members of the food community. Such a treat to have her today. Please welcome Grace Young. Grace, welcome back to the Test Kitchen. It is so awesome to have you here. This feels like almost a homecoming in a fun way. Oh, thank you so much. I'm going to start things off the way I like to do, which is pouring some tea for you. This is a tradition I have on the show where I like to pick a tea that really lines up with my guest. And so today I have picked a raw Pu-erh tea that is from the Pasha Mountain area in Yunnan. And the reason I chose this tea, and I'm going to, I have some here, you can see the beautiful brick there, and then I'm going to pour some into these cups, is the last time we were together, we were in New York's Chinatown, and we were tasting incredible, like 30-year-old raw Pu-erh at Grant Tea Imports. And it was, I love tea so much. It was such an impactful experience for me for so many reasons. This is a special tea in honor of you as well. Thank you so much. Yeah, let's try it. Let's give it a try. Let's see if it's good. Oh, that's lovely. Yeah. Mmm. That is so good. So there's like the raw and then the fermented Pu-erhs. The fermented Pu-erhs can be like really intense. Like those are the ones that get kind of inky in color when you brew them. They have like black tea qualities, green tea qualities. I just feel like they're so complex. Layers of flavor. Yeah. I think you've nailed it, Grace. There's so much depth and lightness and elegance all rolled into this little package. Thank you. As usual, Lan says it way better than me. That was like the perfect summation of it. So that was the last time we were just talking that we were spending time together. And we didn't just do our time at Grant Tea Imports. We also went to Fong On to learn about tofu production. I have to say, and I'm finally going to let you talk here, that walking through New York's Chinatown with you is like walking with like... Michael Jordan through Chicago in the early 1990s. It is like you are with like the celeb of the area. Everybody knows you. And it was like a magical experience for me. I don't feel that at all. Yeah, not at all, but I'm very touched and flattered that you feel that way. It was so meaningful when you came to Chinatown. That was 2021, and Chinatown was on its knees, and you came to shoot for What's Eating Dan, and that was such an uplifting moment for all of us. Chinatown really needed that support and I just couldn't believe that you came up with this idea to come and shoot some of the businesses. So thank you. Yeah, no, it was, it was incredible. And there was, um, we also went to, you're going to help, uh, remind me where I got the cleaver in that wonderful shop. KK discount. Yeah. Which is also a fabulous shop. Yeah. Um, yeah, it was just amazing to spend that time with you there. You know, your career is, is just, uh, I mean, I, I don't love the word iconic, but you are an icon in this industry, and you've done so many amazing things, from helping home cooks actually discover the beauty of a wok and how to cook from it. But your work most recently is much grander in a lot of ways. I mean, not cooking is beautiful, but it's much grander in a lot of ways. When we drink the tea, I like to be able to kind of spill the tea a little bit. So what's going on right now for you in that space of kind of being a humanitarian? Well, so to explain, so for people who don't understand, I went from being a preservationist about Chinese recipes and culinary techniques to trying to preserve America's Chinatowns because they've all been under threat since COVID. In 2021, when you came to Chinatown, that was one of the low points of New York City's Chinatown, and it was happening all across the country at that point, too. Yeah. Most Chinatowns from Honolulu to New York City right now report less foot traffic. They're all struggling. They're dealing with inflation, five years of economic fallout from COVID. There have been tariffs that have been really difficult for the community to absorb. There's rising crime and less tourism. And the historic Chinatowns like San Francisco, New York, Boston, Philly are very dependent on tourism. So it's a very important time to show up. To your local Chinatown, to eat, shop, every Chinatown is a complete community that has everything from hardware stores to pharmacies, so you can find anything and everything in Chinatown, and generally for less money. In New York's Chinatown right now, like... I feel like you go to your same places all the time, but what's something that you're really excited about there that if someone's like, oh, I'm listening and I can walk down there right now? One of my favorites is Chinatown's oldest coffee shop. It's called Maison Cafe, and it's very easy to miss. It looks a little rundown, and it opened in 1967. And it's crab season right now. And if you call them a day in advance and order the crab, I think it's only $30. And it is truly finger-licking good. It's Cantonese-style stir-fried blue crabs. And it's with ginger and minced pork. And it is one of the most decadent dishes. Thank Past crab season, which will probably be like first, second week of November or something, the stir-fried cauliflower with Chinese bacon is just, again, a very unexpected dish. Chinese cauliflower, it has a more intense flavor than regular cauliflower. you. And the combination with Chinese bacon is, to me, Um, Cantonese soul food. Yeah, it's, um... Broccolini-esque? Yes. Like cauliflower and made it a little bit like broccolini, a little stemmier. The flavor is not, it's so beautiful. It's not quite as sulfurous as like what we're used to in the kitchen. The cauliflower, you can probably get that year round. And year round, you can get their ginger lemon tea. I think they call it ginger lemon cider, but it's not cider. There's a wooden sign up there. And that is. Incredible. Especially this time of the year when it's getting cold, there is nothing more warming. And when you drink that tea, it has fresh ginger, lemon, and the honey, and it feels like you're feeding your soul. It is so good. And it just feels like you're taking care of yourself. Wow. That is the best recommendation. I want to go there so bad right now. And it's inexpensive. It's less than $3. It's crazy. It is the drink. I don't know why there isn't a line out the door. There should be. And it's just really intense. I mean, those flavors are really wonderful, but yeah, it's very warming with the ginger and- And the perfect balance. Yeah, and that perfect balance. Absolutely amazing. I remember when we were at Fong On, which is, I think, the oldest still operating family-run Fresh tofu purveyor in Chinatown. There was a lot of focus on the soybeans and the soy milk. Like that's most of what goes into it or all of it goes into it really. And then it's like process. And he was buying local, I think like Hudson Valley, non-GMO, like really, really great soybeans. And you could taste it. Like the flavor came through so nicely. The sort of tofu pudding that he makes there is. So, so, so good. And I would challenge anyone who's not a big tofu fan to go there, try that, and it changes your whole perspective on, I think, what tofu can be. I'm there twice a week. Are you really? Yeah. To buy that or to get the fresh or both? To buy the tofu pudding and also to buy the regular tofu. But I think once you've had it, you're spoiled for life. Yeah. No, it's true. And now I live in Boston and I have to travel to New York to get that. You know, it's really incredible. Since then, I discovered a recipe in Joanne Chang's book, Myers and Chang, for chocolate mousse with silken tofu. And all it is, is silken tofu with melted chocolate, maybe a touch of vanilla. And I don't think there was maybe a little bit of maple syrup. Mind-blowing. Wow. Just whirred it up in the blender. It gives such a silky creaminess to it. It has mousse texture. Yeah. And it's vegan. And it's vegan. That sounds so good to me. So I want to go back a little bit to... You were calling yourself a preservationist of Chinese cooking and specifically wok cooking. I think most people know there's a big kind of wave of legislation coming through right now to try to get like nonstick cookware out of people's homes. You came here and did this amazing side-by-side demo of like wok cooking versus cooking in nonstick. And I was deeply impacted by that. And then our time together, I don't own any nonstick cookware at this point in my life. And I haven't for quite a while. 14-inch flat-bottom carbon steel wok from the wok shop, and that pan lives on my stovetop. It is there all the time, and I cook everything in it. I mean, there are some things where I pull out a Dutch oven, but I'm like, it's so heavy. I'd rather just, if I can do it in a wok, I'm going to do it in a wok. I'm going to wok. And it's transformative for me. So I'm wondering, for folks that are watching and listening, Who are like, oh, yeah, the wok seems cool, but I don't really know my entry point there. What would you recommend for people to look for? And then can you talk a little about the nonstick properties and how that's even possible with it? So for any listeners who have cooked with cast iron, cooking with carbon steel is identical. And just like cast iron, the more you cook with it, the more it develops a natural nonstick cooking surface. I call it ancient nonstick. Oh, I love that. And it's natural. Mm-hmm. And the only difference between carbon steel and cast iron is when you start off with cast iron, it's light gray, and then it gets a deeper gray, and then dark, and then finally black. Carbon steel makes you sweat it a little bit, yeah because the visuals are not pretty in the beginning. When you first season a brand new pan, it could possibly not change at all. And by seasoning it, I mean you wash and scrub it with dishwashing soap and rinse it several times and then dry it on the stove. And then my simple method for seasoning is just to stir fry. Half a cup of sliced ginger and one bunch of scallions that have been cut into two pieces and I stir fry it with a high smoking point oil, two tablespoons, for about 20 minutes to a half an hour on medium heat. And during that process, the heat opens up the pores of the metal and the scallion ginger mixture kind of cleans out the metal and you're actually burning the oil into the metal so the oil literally hardens and that is what creates the natural non-stick surface. And, but in carbon steel. It cannot change, it can turn yellow in the beginning, it can go orange, it can go blue, it can be black and splotchy, but generally it looks like you made an enormous mistake. And people get really nervous and they think that they did something wrong and they have to start all over again, and I get people sending me photos on Instagram. You know, what should I do? Should I toss it and buy a new one and start all over again? But this is the critical point. You just have to like live through this period. And it goes on for like a year or two, depending on how much you're cooking with the wok. But I call it the period where the wok actually goes through wok adolescence. So it looks like it has like wok acne. And you just have to stick with it. But the more you cook with it, especially using oil, so therefore when you're stir-frying, pan-frying, deep-fat frying, the pan gets better and better. So a brand-new wok, you want to avoid steaming, boiling, poaching, or even braising. You want to use oil methods that just sort of like burn that oil into the pan. Chris, I have to thank you for that analogy, because folks who are new to carbon steel cookware at all, and when they're seasoning that pan and it gets that splotchiness, I get messages from colleagues here, from friends, from strangers over socials, and they're like, I tried your method, and it doesn't look like that beautiful black. Perfect carbon steel pan, and your voice is in my head, and I'm telling them the exact same thing. Your pan is going through an awkward adolescence phase. You have to love it while it's growing. You just have to push through and let it develop. And the more you cook with it, the better it will. And so I did this video called Wok Therapist, which is a sort of a three-minute comedy about my life being a walk therapist with all these people writing to me through Instagram or social media and saying, what have I done wrong? Should I begin again? Yeah. I love it. It's such a, it just makes it so sort of human and relatable that like we all go through these sort of processes. And, um, I know exactly what you mean. Like my, I have, um, uh, I have my wok that I just talked about, but I also have a really nice carbon steel skillet and it's beautiful and like jet black now, right? Like it's the color of these mic stands. Um, But it took a really long time to get there, right? And I remember you were mentioning, Milan has this amazing cast iron pan pizza that gets like crispy and fried on the bottom. It's like really beautiful. And you were like, it's actually a great way to season. And so I started making pizzas in that and that really improved it a ton. And it's so satisfying now. Like there's an actual point of pride in like seeing it get to that point, which I don't think... Most folks that are looking for nonstick because it's going to cook their eggs easily and stuff like that, they're missing out on that component of it. You've grown with your walk. You've seen it go from being a stainless steel, silver-looking thing to acquiring this gorgeous patina. And there's a sense of achievement and success. And it's a beautiful thing to have a connection or even more beautiful when your parents and their wok. to you, or you give your walk to your children, right? And so much of our society right now is everything needs to be new. You want the latest computer, cell phone, car, TV, right? But with a walk, the older, the better. And old-fashioned cooks always say that. Thank Food cooked in an old, well-seasoned wok actually tastes better. And Paula Wolfert used to say about cooking in clay pot that the pot carries a food memory. And I think that's true with carbon steel and cast iron. That's so beautiful. That's so beautiful. And you have been the, maybe not even owner, you. but like the custodian of some really old and interesting woks. Can you talk a little bit about? Some of the ages of them and like you have a traveling wok and you have, it's just fascinating to me. So I have walks that I take when I teach. Mm-hmm. And I used to actually travel with Walkman. That's what I called the walk. But nowadays I'm so scared that TSA might take my walk from me. So oftentimes when I teach now, I will actually season a brand new walk and then I'll give it to a friend or something. But, My most famous wok is my parents' wok, you know, and they got married in 1949, and they cooked we're with that wok probably until the 1960s when we moved to a new home. going And so when I was growing up, to keep I only saw them stir-frying in a Farberware stainless steel skillet. talking. Wow. I never saw them cook with a wok. And then... Later in life, I became a cookbook author, and then I got into Chinese cooking, and when I interviewed them, I asked them why they didn't cook with a wok, and they said, oh, you can't with an electric stove. But after my father died in 2009, I went back to San Francisco, and my brother handed me this Safeway shopping bag one day, and he said, oh, I thought you might want this, and inside this shopping bag was my parents' wok. And he had taken it away to college intending on using it, but I guess he never used it and just shoved it in the back of his closet. So they cooked with this wok and it had like this thick, thick patina. And that wok is now at the Smithsonian. Oh my God. Most famous is accurate. I think that's so incredible. Because I gave it to the Smithsonian because I said to the Smithsonian curator that it tells a very important story of Chinese American culinary history. And that is so many people came to this country using a wok, but for various reasons, stopped using a wok. There are so many Asian Americans that don't know how to use a wok anymore. Mm-hmm. And... In the 1940s and 50s, when my parents started cooking, you could only buy a round-bottom walk. So if you had an electric stove, it wouldn't work. Oh, true. Right? Mm-hmm. Some people could only buy kind of restaurant-sized walks, and that was too big to heat up on a residential stove. Thank I interviewed women who had grown up in Mississippi in the 1940s and 50s, And they said, our parents... Couldn't buy a wok. They stir-fried in pots and in skillets. So everyone, the Chinese diaspora had to make do with what they had. you. And in many cases, they lost touch with wok cooking. So my parents ended up, when they had an electric stove, they were stir-frying with a Farberware skillet. Yeah. Yeah. Making do. I think that happens a lot. It feels like we sort of go through these periods where we like have a tradition, we lose it. And then ideally there's another generation that comes along and it's like, no, no, that wasn't important. And like sort of pulls it back up into the consciousness. And I think woks, you know, are definitely have had that moment in a great way. I mean, obviously your books, I think, I think about Kenji Lopez-Alt's wok book, which came at a great time to sort of keep that, um, that effort going. And then Our effort here, you know, to sort of get that message out as well. I love holding on to those sort of traditions. I want to talk about the Smithsonian because that's not the only thing that you've given to the Smithsonian. I learned that you had a signed copy of The French Chef, the Julia Child cookbook, and you gave that to the Smithsonian. How much other stuff of yours is there and like I mean I just think it's so generous and big of you to do that like I could see myself like being like this is my signed copy or you know like that wanting to keep keep it so what's the what's the thinking there? So in 2022 I received the Julia Child Award for my work to preserve and protect America's Chinatowns and as part of receiving the Julia Child Award you're supposed to give something I think that's something meaningful. And I was very lucky. My career, I believe, is completely influenced by Julia Child. So I grew up in a classic Chinese-American household where my parents cooked very classic Cantonese homestyle dishes. Thank But from the time I was a little girl, I discovered Julia on TV. And I was captivated, mesmerized. I wanted to cook what she was cooking. Thank I saved up the money and bought the French chef paperback book, and my mom let me cook from it. you. And when I was about 13 or 14, Julia came to San Francisco and I begged my father to take off from work. you. I don't know how I figured out that Julia was in town, but she was doing a book signing at the White House department store. And so I didn't know what a book signing was, but I thought I would bring my book and have it signed. So my father took off from work. We went. We were the only Asian Americans in the room. Julia was there with her husband, Paul, and I lined up, and that's when I noticed that everybody around me looked like the ladies who lunch. They were women in beautiful, I want to say now, like Dior suits. They were just like dressed to the nines, and they all had a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 2. And I was standing there with my little paperback, but when I got up to Julia, she was so gracious and sweet, as was Paul, and they both signed the book. And my father took a photo, which I then sent to her at WGBH, and she autographed it and mailed it back to me. And this is the most painful part. Over the years, that photograph got lost. I took a leave and traveled around the world back in 1986, and it was in that year that the photo got lost. But, yeah, so I gave. the French chef cookbook to the Smithsonian, and when my first book, Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen, was published, I gave a speech for the American Institute of Wine and Food, and that night they seated me next to Julia. Wow. So I spent a whole night with Julia and my mother and father. That is an amazing story by itself, and about a month or two months after that, Wisdom of of the Chinese kitchen. I was nominated for two IACP awards, and Julia sent me a postcard, typewritten postcard, that said, I understand you got nominated for the Julia Child First Cookbook Award and the Best International Cookbook, and I hope you win. Oh, my God. I know. The story just gets better and better. Like, I'm loving this. I know. Let's start. Yeah. And so the, and Julia was at IACP the night I won and my husband took this wonderful photograph of Julia and me. So that photograph, the photograph of us at the AIWF dinner and the postcard are at the Smithsonian. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. That's, that's amazing. I mean, the, the number of like Julia Child fans out there and even who work here and are on like, Like, you know, PBS TV because of her and stuff like that is like enormous. I think you've lived out the dream version of having her sort of in your life. Um, it. I feel like she would be so proud of everything that you've done since she passed if she were able to see it today. So incredible. I'm just, in a million years, I never dreamed that I would ever receive the Julia Child Award, but it did feel like it came full circle, that she started my career at the AIWF dinner. I gave a speech where I was able to acknowledge that it's because of her that I got into food, and then that she was there when I received the award, and then to receive the Julia Child Award It was a moment of, like, Completion. Yeah, absolutely completion. Wow, that is incredible. No notes. No notes. Perfect. Okay. So Grace, I like to do this third segment of the show, um, that I call the roar snack test. So in, instead of showing you like ink blots and psychoanalyzing you, I just ask you some funny food questions so we can dig a little bit deeper. Um, I feel like I know you pretty well, but I have some questions I want to dig deeper on. So my first question, and this is like an open-ended, like finish the statement sort of one is when life hands you lemons. Well, I would make ginger lemon honey tea. That's such an easy one. I think we probably could have answered for you on that one. Or I have a really fabulous lemon chicken recipe in Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen that my mother's friend Ivy Fong taught her. And it is super simple. I'm not sure if I can remember the whole recipe on the spot right now, but it is just one of the best recipes I've ever made. Oh, that sounds really good. What's the cooking method on it? It's a braise. A braise, okay. And you cut the lemons into slices in it. You pan fry them. But you should never do this in a brand new wok because acid is not a brand new wok's best friend. You can do it in a well-seasoned wok or in this case, I would use a stainless steel skillet. But it is honey and the browned lemon slices. And ginger, which is just mind-blowing. That sounds so good to me. It does. The browning of the lemons, yeah. I've had them off the grill, but that sounds really, really good. Yeah. I love that. Okay, so this is a really tough one, and maybe it's a Sophie's choice to you, but if you could only have one type of fruit for the rest of your life, which would you choose? Easy. Mangosteen. Oh, my God. That's my answer. Yes. Oh, my God. Really? Oh, my God. Mangosteens are incredible. The most decadent, and in the summertime, you can buy them in Chinatown. I think they're like $10 a pound now, but that is my, yeah, if I want to really. Be good to myself and pamper myself. I think it ends up costing like two dollars for a little one, but it is so amazing and also described like I think Many people unfortunately have not had a mangosteen before so right why you so it has segments like a tangerine Yeah, it has a hard shell that if you just press into the shell it cracks and then you can break it open And then you see What looks like almost like a tangerine, little segments, but they're pure white. And then when you pull them apart and put a segment in your mouth, there's generally a tiny little flat seed inside. Sometimes it doesn't have it. In like some of the cloves, right? Not all of them. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I feel like unfortunately the ones that you get in the States have been through like a journey. And so you get them in like... Three of them are really good and the other like seven, the 10 aren't. No, no, you have to come to New York City's Chinatown. All of them are good. All of them are good. Yeah, I think it's like, that makes total sense to me. But when they're good, they're so incredible. And then they're sweet, but they also have just enough like underlying acidity that they're like, you just pop them. They're so incredible. And like a hint of passion fruit and a hint of mango, like all these little layers of flavor You can't quite describe what you're tasting. It's true, it's true. Okay, and so my last question for you, Grace, is if you could teach the home cooks of America one thing that they're missing that they should know, what would that be? Oh. These are all easy questions. Oh, my God. I was like, uh-oh. This is like... Sometimes I ask weirder ones. Final exam time. I'm going to, like, fail, like, miserably here. No. Of course, everyone has to learn how to stir fry. Mm-hmm. I'm the stir fry guru, right? It's true, yeah. So it's a gimme. But I think a stir fry is one of the most... Practical techniques, it's fast, it's quick, it's nutritious, and it's sublimely delicious. Wow, it's almost like a poem. I know. See, that's why I give you the easy questions, because I know you'll take it and turn it into like this. Beautiful nugget of wisdom. I think that's awesome. Well, I wish that for home cooks as well. And get a walk and go to some Chinese restaurants and get into some Chinatowns. Shop in Chinatown. Go to the bakeries, the pharmacies, the markets. Thank Yeah, it's a wonderful way to explore one of America's great treasures. And we have to. Before, if we don't support Chinatowns today, they will not be there tomorrow. They're all struggling that badly. Yeah. Well, message heard. you. I'm excited to head up to Boston Chinatown really soon. Grace, thank you so much for coming by. This has been such a lovely chat. I'm glad that we could reconnect after all these years. Thank you. Thanks, Grace.