Tender Table

Chef Woonsen (she/hers) was born in the smallest province in Thailand, 45 minutes north of the country’s capital, Bangkok. She has over 10 years of professional experience in cooking and studying Thai food and a degree in Food Nutrition from Thailand. After completing 9th grade, Woonsen attended Trade school for 3 years, then received her Food Nutrition degree in her hometown 2 years later. After saving enough money working at resorts as a front of house staff, she enrolled in a Hospitality program in Bangkok, and started working at the province Hua Hin as a prep cook at big international hotels.

Eventually Thailand cut its national budget for tourism and closed the nearby airport, and Woonsen was laid off. She moved to Phuket for its busy tourist attraction to work in a beauty clinic, then eventually to Pattaya, and finally landed in the beach island Koh Kut for the next 5 years as a chef. She was later recruited to come to America, and is celebrating her 5th year in Portland as the Executive Chef of Sweet Basil Thai Cuisine.

Chef Woonsen will be presenting at Tender Table on November 12 at Sweet Basil Thai Cuisine in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from:
หนึ่งประโยคที่สามารถใช้อธิบายตัวคุณเองและที่มาของคุณ

I am a transgender woman Chef from Thailand!!! I am KaTuey (trans) (กะเทย)!

I have over 10 years experience in studying and cooking Thai food. My first time learning was when my mom taught me simple things, like steaming rice and cooking pad krapow. Pad Krapow is like a burger in America. When you have no idea what to eat, you just eat Pad Krapow.

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking:
คำแนะนำที่ดีที่สุดที่คุณเคยรับเกี่ยวกับการทำอาหาร

Timing is very important. Not every food you make is quick. When making food, you need to allocate the right time to create the best dining experience. You need to prep and combine all the ingredients together to ensure the best quality beforehand.

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be:
ถ้าคุณรับประทานอาหารได้เพียงมื้อเดียวตลอดชีวิต จะเป็นอาหารอะไร

Thai food only! BBQ Thai chicken, Som Tum Pla (papaya salad) -- either Lao or Issan style, and sticky rice. Lao style Som Tom has shrimp paste and is spicier, while issan style doesn’t have shrimp paste and is less spicy.

Favorite food:
อาหารที่คุณชอบมากที่สุด

This is hard! Thai food because Thai food has everything. Like life, it has every flavor: Sweet (happy), spicy (sexy), salty (really, it’s not good for you, but it represents hardship, negativity), and sour (fun, excitement). These are 4 distinct flavors of Thai food and of life.

Recommended reading:
การอ่านที่คุณแนะนำ

I like reading books about cooking, specifically desserts or cake (kanom).

Best meal(s):
"อาหาร" ที่ทานแล้วมีความสุขมากที่สุด

Not yet… I don’t have one yet (joking).

My happiest meals are when I cook food for people I love, that’s when I’m the happiest.

Food you’d like to try:
อาหารที่คุณอยากลองรับประทาน

Mexican food! I also want to learn how to make every dish in Mexican food.

(Photos courtesy of Chef Woonsen)

Candace Kita grew up in suburban Chicago, downtown Los Angeles, and southeast Portland. She reads, dances, asks questions, and eats her vegetables. 

Candace will be presenting at Tender Table on October 7 @ High & Low Gallery in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: Books, carbs, the suburbs, only-child-ness, and coffee have shaped me.

What will you be presenting on? I will be presenting on shame, pleasure, and weight.

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: You should use oil when cooking something in a pan...told to me by my best friend Tina in college, when I had no idea how to cook anything.

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: Pho

Favorite food: Choosing one doesn't seem right: figs, onigiri, chocolate

Recommended reading: Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Best meals: Japanese breakfast at a hotel in Tokyo -- consisting of various pickled items, eggplant, rice, miso

Food you’d like to try: I've been wanting to try the vegan schwarma at Aviv and the "proper" way of eating natto.

Based in Portland, OR, Marilou Carrera is a health equity advocate by day and art adjacent by night. Her experiences as a Filipina and Japanese woman who immigrated to the U.S. as a child, as well as her time practicing as a registered nurse, advocating for communities of color, and promoting public health, have long persuaded her of the importance and imperative of sharing stories. She co-developed We Carry Oceans, an online collection of stories about accessing reproductive health within Asian / Pacific Islander communities and continues to partner with creatives around Portland. 

Marilou will be presenting at Tender Table on October 7 @ High & Low Gallery in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: Filipino and Japanese daughter from a legacy of love, quiet strength, and the diaspora that is oceans and war and family and resilience.

What will you be presenting on? Conversing with a close friend on relationships to food and the impact on body / body image.

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: Taste as you go!

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: As a Libra, it is impossible for me to answer this question. 

Favorite food: See previous - however, I lean heavily toward Filipino and Japanese food. And pickled vegetables.

Recommended reading: Again, Libra sensibilities at play - most recent reads, however, include A Tale for the Time Being through which I experienced a deep emotional response and connection to the characters and storylines, so there's that? 

Best meals: With loved ones; On my birthday; Unexpected

Food you’d like to try: Food my friends and family make - they're so brilliant!

(Photo courtesy of Marilou Carrera)

Andrea Lemoins is from Baton Rouge, Louisiana via Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  She began baking at the age of 6, with her Easy Bake Oven.  Andrea is a classically trained French Pastry Chef, and bakes with the Creole ingredients and flavors of her ancestors.

Andrea will be presenting at Tender Table on October 7 @ High & Low Gallery in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: I'm a lot of person, who is also Creole from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

What will you be presenting on? Chess Pie, and why it's such a party of my identity.

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: Stop thinking so much, just bake.

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: Chicken and Sausage Gumbo with Hot Water Cornbread

Favorite food: Crabmeat Rangoon

Recommended reading: Rigoberto Gonzalez: So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water Until it Breaks

Best meals: Burgers and Fries/General Tso's Chicken/Salt and Pepper Squid

Food you’d like to try: Traditional South African Food

(Photo courtesy of Andrea Lemoins)

Soleil Ho is a chef and writer. She cohosts Racist Sandwich, the biweekly podcast on food, race, class, and gender.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: I have always cooked and eaten when words were not enough.

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: It takes a lot more skill and knowledge to cook with poor ingredients.

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: Vietnamese-Cajun crawfish boil, extra corn

Favorite food: Steamed snow crab legs with clarified butter and lemon

Recommended reading: The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen; No Man’s Land by Eula Biss; Think Like a Chef by Tom Colicchio

Best meal(s): Aguachile rojo at Ocho Tostadas in Puerto Vallarta, MX; wonton soup that I made with a bunch of lovely friends; tater tots filled with bechamel sauce at Travail in Minneapolis, MN

Food you’d like to try: Dancing shrimp!! Smoked duck jerky!! X’ian baked bun sandwiches!

(Photo courtesy of Soleil Ho)

Rachelle Dixon is a lifelong "foodie" and a caterer at her company, Antilles Pearl Catering in Portland Oregon. Rachelle cooks with soul to prepare meals that are deeply satisfying and has been doing so for over 3 decades. 

The skills she learned from her Mother, to be generous in cooking and to let the flavors slowly develop, serve her well to this day. She works to make the dining experience an unhurried respite from modern life.

Her desire to remember her ancestors on different shores shows up in the flavorful, colorful dishes she prepares for her guest. The food speaks to the culture of Haiti, Africa and Indigenous North America.

Rachelle will be presenting at Tender Table on September 23 @ Regional Arts & Culture Council in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: Raised in the Pacific Northwest with Haitian and Indigenous roots.

What will you be presenting on? Gumbo: Cultural Fusion in a Bowl

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: Let the flavors develop; be patient.

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: Gumbo

Favorite food: Shrimp

Recommended reading: Anything written by Maya Angelou

Best meals: Mussels in white wine and butter sauce with plenty of fresh French bread and a side salad with a lemony vinaigrette dressing.

Food you’d like to try: Guyanese

(Photo courtesy of Rachelle Dixon)

Ratnanjali will be presenting at Tender Table on September 23 @ Regional Arts & Culture Council in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: I am a first generation immigrant from India. My parents grew up in an ashram outside of Agra where most mornings were spent farming as a community. I try to integrate those values into my life here.

What will you be presenting on? Dhaniya Ki Chutney (green Coriander Chutney)

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: Fresh ingredients, don't cook when you're hungry

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: see below

Favorite food: Dosas and Sambar, or Idlis, or anything else S Indian

Recommended reading: Earth Democracy by Vandana Shiva

Best meals: Vegetables grown with care, made by people who want to nourish those around them.

Food you’d like to try: Anything vegetarian and a little spicy.

(Photo courtesy of Ratnanjali Adhar)

Emilly Prado is a writer and library assistant living in Portland, Oregon. Her work focuses on amplifying the voices of people from marginalized communities in music, activism, and art and has appeared in several publications including Remezcla, Bitch Media, and the Portland Mercury amongst others. When not writing, she takes photos, makes zines, and sells homemade pinback buttons under the name of Sludge Judy.

Emilly will be presenting at Tender Table on July 28 @ People's Food Co-op in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: One-and-a-half generation Chicana by way of California and Michoacán, Mexico. 

What will you be presenting on? Food as tradition, contention, and memory

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: It's all about the timing. Also, clean as you go. 

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: See below!

Favorite food: Morisqueta. A regional Tierra Caliente staple for country folk consisting of a mountain of white rice, frijoles de la olla, and slightly spicy, tender tomato sauce-stewed pork topped with crema, cabbage, cotija cheese, and a handful of radishes on the side. 

Recommended reading: Some favorites with food in the title: The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros; Milk & Honey by Rupi Kaur; Chicken Soup with Rice by Maurice Sendak

Best meals: Every xmas. highlights include tamales, ceviche, and buñuelos a solo lunch in Sicily in which I was temporarily adopted by the family I was sitting next to on one side and a pair of suited business men on the other. The family ordered for me and both offered me endless amounts of red wine. I ate delicious rice balls called arancini with swordfish and fresh garlicky pasta. mmmm. A mom & pop taco shop with friends in Guadalajara a few years ago. We sat for like two hours and just kept ordering more and more tacos and quesadillas. The tortillas were hand made, the queso oaxaca was gooey af, and the salsas were delicious. 

Food you’d like to try: Satsuki's bento lunches in Totoro

Additional comments: I'm honored to be apart of Tender Table and share a sliver of my food stories with you. I'll be selling copies of a brand new food zine as well as other works including con las dos manos/with both hands. 

(Photo courtesy of Emilly Prado)

Yasmin will be presenting at Tender Table on July 28 @ People's Food Co-op in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: Yasmin Alishav is a food photographer and chef on a 20-year path to vegetarianism. This year she gave up lamb and rabbit.

What will you be presenting on? Italian influence on Peruvian cuisine. 

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: Never put chives in a juicer.

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: Tequila.

Favorite food: Hollandaise sauce.

Recommended reading: The Man Who Ate Everything - Jeffrey Steingarten

Best meals: Free ones.

Food you’d like to try: Unpasteurized cheese from Europe - like the ones worms in them.

(Photo courtesy of Yasmin Alishav)

Christine will be presenting at Tender Table on July 28 @ People's Food Co-op in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself & where you came from: Vietnamese-American, small-town girl who loves basketball, photography, and hip-hop.

What will you be presenting on? Vietnamese spring roll, goi cuon. The strength & benefits of sharing food.

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: "Just add fish sauce."

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: Rice, eggs, and soy sauce forever

Favorite food: Vietnamese

Recommended reading: Catfish and Mandala by Andrew X. Pham, and any quote from Ali Wong

Best meals: The kind you can eat and share with your friends and family

Food you’d like to try: I’d like to try more Indian food

(Photo courtesy of Christine Dong)

Hang will be presenting at Tender Table on July 1 @ High & Low Gallery in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: I am Hang. I came from VN as a refugee, and I arrived to Canada 1983 from Paula Bidong camp before I moved to United State 1988 after I married.

What will you be presenting on? Sâm Bổ Lượng

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: Patient and detail

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: Plain Tofu, Fish stew and steam vegetable

Favorite food: Noodle in soup as Phở, Bún Bò Huế, Mì, Hủ Tíu and Bún Riêu.

Recommended reading: History

Best meal(s): Lunch

Food you’d like to try: Italian

Additional comments: Cooking is a part of art and creation. You may not cook your food by recipes only, but it will be fun and taste better when you put your mind in it.

Béalleka will be presenting at Tender Table on July 1 @ High & Low Gallery in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: I'm a Black, queer, indigenous Kenyan raised in an L.A. suburb by my yt, workaholic mom + in Berkeley by my dad's 20-something girlfriend.   

What will you be presenting on? Queer families & food culture

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: Put your heart into it. As with every act, the emotion will come through.

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: split red lentils, warming spices and basmati rice + mangoes from the Kenyan coast

Favorite food: Savory crunch + salt + creamy; fish & rice with briny pops of flavor like tobiko.

Recommended reading: Martia Bonner; Zora Neale Hurston; Audre Lorde's Zami; Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, Sula, Beloved, and The Bluest Eye; Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl; The Fire This Time ed. by Jesmyn Ward. Everyone should read Citizen by Claudia Rankine. Everyone. All Octavia Butler, all the time. Wait, was this supposed to be about food?

Best meals: Prepared without haste for chosen family with music + great conversation

Food you’d like to try: I've tried a lot, memorably horsemeat and bee larvae in Matsumoto and a bowlful of tiny, smiling, snails in Granada. I want to test whether flour in Italy might not poison me like it does in the U.S.

Additional comments: I like reverse engineering recipes to accommodate dietary restrictions and replicate what I can't afford to buy, like Honey Mamma chocolate.

(Photo courtesy of Béalleka)

Leslie will be presenting at Tender Table on June 10 @ Ristretto Roasters in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: Just this black American broad, a mixed up dead end path of the African diaspora.

What will you be presenting on? I'll be talking about Kale, and what happens when staple food becomes Superfood.

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: Don't learn to cook recipes, learn to cook.

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: My family's version of turkey dinner which includes all the famous turkey dinner stuff, plus stewed greens, macaroni and cheese, sweet potato pie, and pound cake.

Favorite food: Right now green leafy stuff

Recommended reading: Vintage cookbooks from before 1940

Best meal(s): Turkey dinners with the trimmings, shrimp and grits, summer meals that are all stuff from the farm stand, green beans, summer squash, corn on the cob, fresh sliced tomatoes with salt, boiled new potatoes with clarified butter.

Food you’d like to try: Most of them, with a side of the rest of them.

Vanessa Pérez Winder is a 21 year old living, working, studying, feeling, and resisting in Portland OR.

Vanessa will be presenting at Tender Table on June 10 @ Ristretto Roasters in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: I am a college student majoring in Art History, born in Lima, Peru and raised in the Portland Metro area; brown, queer, femme.

What will you be presenting on? I will be sharing the dish Arroz Chaufa, which is Peruvian style fried rice. This dish is a staple in Peruvian cuisine and has held much significance to me throughout my life as a very comforting favorite food of mine, as something extremely inexpensive my mom could afford to make for my sisters and I whilst being disconnected from her homeland, and as a plate that says so much about Peruvian history.

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: Put butter in your rice.

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: Arroz con pollo! Classic.

Favorite food: Probably... rice.

Recommended reading: I think The Autobiography of Assata Shakur is my favorite book of all time.

Best meal(s): Peruvian arroz con pollo (cilantro rice and chicken with lime marinated onions on top), rich and brothy soups, rice cooked with chicken fat, and chupe de camarones (a prawn/tomato/egg/quinoa soup).

Food you’d like to try: I would really like to try fried insects. People across the globe eat them all the time and they are sustainable protein replacements, so I feel like I have to give them a shot.

Additional comments: I'm a 21 year old college student majoring in Art History and minoring in Women's Studies. I really love the concept of this, I think that for femmes and gnc people of color, food is such an important way to comfort, celebrate, embrace, and connect. I grew up undocumented and unable to return to Peru, so throughout my life, food has been one of my primary ways to connect with my culture and define my identity.

Lilian Dirrebes is an artist and community organizer born and raised in Portland, Oregon.

Lilian will be presenting at Tender Table on June 10 @ Ristretto Roasters in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: Palauan by blood, Pacific Islander by spirit, and a Portlander by birth.

What will you be presenting on? With graduation season upon us, Lilian will be presenting on the struggle of navigating different graduation festivities in Portland as part of the Palauan diaspora.

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: After I graduated from high school, my father told me: "the most important thing you can take with you to college is bread." I'm not sure if that's figurative or literal, but it's resonated deeper than I anticipated.

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: I heard someone respond to this by saying salad. I'm stealing that answer because anything can be a salad if you put your mind to it. I'm probably going to re-brand my future ice cream sundaes as "ice cream salads" from now on.

Favorite food: I love ukaeb. It's a Palauan dish of crab meat cooked in coconut milk stuffed into a small crab shell.

Recommended reading: Do yourself a favor and pick up the new collection of poetry by Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner that just came out.

Best meal(s): I'm a huge fan of the mansaf they serve at Petra House in Vancouver, WA.

Food you’d like to try: I'd love to try breadfruit mofongo one day.

Zeloszelos Marchandt is a multi-media creative living in the Portland metropolis, with a background in Interdisciplinary Studies.  They are the Evening News and Public Affairs Director for KBOO 90.7 FM, covering local, state, national and international news. They love good times, good words and good people. 

Zeloszelos is presenting at Tender Table on May 27 @ YU in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: The stars, the sea, the lava and the teeth.

What will you be presenting on? I prefer surprises, especially if it involves poetry, which I am going to present but I can say that I will be presenting something that involves what we use to process our "foods" and what that means personally to us.

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: Use salt. Ignore dried basil and shut up and listen when someone from another culture is talking about their recipes. It's their home they're talking about.

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: This will sound boring but I like big ass salads. Give me those big ass salads any day. Also soups with noodles and things with enjera bread.

Favorite food: Food that tastes good. There will always be a new favorite but traditional Thai food from the islands. Also traditional mexican food- I can't go out and eat, I have to make it. We went to a bi-lingual church and the potlucks were dishes of south american and mexican composition. So today it means comfort food. I don't experience it as something to pay $25 a plate for or even $6 a burrito on the regular (although I do have a special food cart by my house when I need one) it's something synonymous with love, home, retreat. Aunties and neighbors would give me a simple tortilla after church or school and it tasted like safty and possibility all in one.

Recommended reading: Mushrooming without Fear- Alexander Schwab and Color: A History of the Palette- Victoria Finlay.  My primary partner and I are big foragers. Mushrooming without Fear is a great starter book and Color appealed to my art history love. Natural colors and pigments are often times one and the same as the things we eat. Only since the industrial age have we used more chemicals to dye things.

Best meal(s): Are the ones I get to share with loved ones.

Food you’d like to try: More Russian food. Where is it that it's not like $40 a plate??

Anna Vo is an audio engineer, musician, writer, social justice educator, zine editor and illustrator. They also draw comics, dance weird, tell fortunes, and make goofy jokes. They/theirs, ACAB, APOC.

Anna Vo will be presenting at Tender Table on May 27 @ Yale Union in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: Born in Aotearoa, ethnically Vietnamese.

What will you be presenting on? Chè báp. It will be my first time making it, which is part of the point.

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: Don't shop hungry.

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: Lasagna!

Favorite food: profiteroles / eclaires (Thanks to colonization a la francais)

Recommended reading: James Baldwin, Angela Davis, Kurt Vonnegut

Best meal(s): I make good pot pies, peanut satay, mango curry and tropical summer salads.

Food you’d like to try: my grandmother's cooking again.

Additional comments: I'll be talking about street eating, Asian personal space, 2am hangouts, whitewashing of food, xenophobia, familial friendships, reflections on how different folks build and hold community.

(Photo courtesy of Say Hello Hello Food)

Stephanie Adams-Santos will be presenting at Tender Table on May 27 @ Yale Union in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: I'm the weird keep-to-myself queer bruja-type poet kid of a gringo papa and a Guatemalan mama, born in Portland but raised in both places. I often am cooking, writing, watching things with great intensity, being silent, being shy, being secret, doing occult deeds. I'm a scorpio. My nahual is Eb (the sacred path)—bearer of time & destiny, the sign of Grass, humble & abundant, a place between places, between dimensions and worlds.

What will you be presenting on? Various musings on chiles, female genius, pain & inheritance.

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: Don't turn your back on the masa. It follows you.

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: Tortillas, lime, chile & salt. Or pho.

Favorite food: depending on availability: vegan fish tacos from veggie grill; pizza; guatemalan tamales de arroz

Recommended reading: Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram; Everything by Lucille Clifton; old codexes and cave inscriptions

Food you’d like to try: I would love to try all the various regional tamales

(Photo courtesy of Stephanie Adams-Santos)

Mercedes Orozco is a visual artist and the director of UNA Gallery. 

Mercedes will be presenting at Tender Table on May 5 @ UNA Gallery in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: Born and raised in Mexico City, forever in a state of identity crisis.

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: Don't taste the beans for salt, taste the water.

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: Tacos!

Favorite food: My mom's Gorditas de Frijol (a fried dough made of masa and beans), topped with my dad's Salsa Macha (oil-based with chile de árbol and garlic)

Recommended reading: Old diary entries or letters, by a younger you. Or All in the Timing by David Ives

Best meal(s): The evening of my grandmother's funeral, after a mass held by atheists, communists and old intellectuals, we gathered for dinner at an old friend's restaurant in Mexico City, Arrebatto. I can't tell if the food was the most delicious thing I'd ever tasted because the company and spirit of the group was the most delightful I'd ever felt, or vice versa. We laughed and loved all night, I tried food for the first time that was so delicate and so delicious I'll remember it forever.

Food you’d like to try: Chiles en Nogada

Jen Tam is a Chinese American performer and artist originally from Honolulu, HI. She is a graphic designer and film producer by day, stand up comedian + lead dog in a band named VOG by night. Her biggest shame is being a former Yelp Elite, but she only wrote positive reviews and mostly used the opportunity to get a lot of free food and drinks.

Jen will be presenting at Tender Table on May 5 @ UNA Gallery in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: Jen Tam is a 2nd/5th generation Chinese American performer and artist originally from Honolulu, HI.

What will you be presenting on? I will be sharing the dish of ginger poached chicken served with chicken broth, which my mother made pretty frequently for my family when I was growing up. I will be sharing stories of my mother and how this dish has transformed in its meanings for me throughout my life.

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: There can never be too much fried garlic. - Advice, from me, to myself

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: It would have to be Wednesday forever because it's the chicken curry noodle soup served only on Wednesdays at Ha VL.

Favorite food: Probably noodles

Recommended reading: I'm bad at making time to read books. The last audiobook I enjoyed was Ta-Nahesi Coates Between The World And Me.

Best meal(s): Sweet Home Cafe Taiwanese hotpot in Honolulu, every soup served at Ha VL in Portland, fancy sushi is always a best meal

Food you’d like to try: I heard there is horse sashimi in Japan... I wouldn't kill a horse, but if it was in front of me and someone already did the dirty work for me (thanks capitalism), I'd try it.

Additional comments: I mostly exist on Facebook - find me + all of my performance dates at

(Photo courtesy of Jen Tam)

A'misa Chiu is an API zinester, artist, librarian, and inspired member of the Women of Color Zine Workshop. A'misa is the co-editor of Eyeball Burp, and is one of the organizers of the Portland Zine Symposium. www.amisachiu.com

A’misa will be presenting at Tender Table on April 20 @ Cardinal Club in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: A Japanese American yonsei research librarian and zinester

What will you be presenting on? Why learning to make my own umeboshi (pickled plums with shiso) reconnected me with my late grandmother

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: Use your senses while you cook, taste as you go, smell as you go, and my grandmother Sue always said "Never make too big of a dish so people leave wanting more, that's how you keep them visiting you."

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: Bun be Hue. I recently have been introduced to this glorious noodle soup, and I crave it very often now.

Favorite food: Anything sour, spicy (very spicy), garlic-y! Pickled vegetables over hot rice and a cup of tea. I also will never turn down anything shiso or tamarind flavored.

Recommended reading: Heartbeat of the Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama, by Diane Fujino; this book changed my life.

Best meal(s): Sukiyaki while on vacation with family friends eaten in motel rooms, Teriyaki Chicken and Tempura combo plate at Gardena Bowl (a diner in my hometown inside a bowling alley), Matsushima family potluck spreads (the best!), homemade gyoza eaten with family.

Food you’d like to try: I generally like very intense flavors, and dislike very few foods. I want to try it all.

Additional comments: I love eating family-style. You are able to eat more of a variety, and the focus is in the center of the table, with everyone reaching in, and lots of interaction. My pet peeve is when everyone orders their own dish, or when people don't serve each other. I love conversation around the table. With good friends, I can sit at the dinner table for hours chatting and joking around. Some of my favorite memories are when friends and family visit from out of town, and we cook together and eat in instead of eating out. 

(Photo courtesy of A’misa Chiu)

Mazzy Chiu is a cool kid who does cool stuff! She is the star of the YouTube series, Cooking with Mazzy.

Mazzy will be presenting at Tender Table on April 20 @ Cardinal Club in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: A curious out-spoken toddler of Chinese and Japanese descent

What will you be presenting on? The Mazzy Show is filming a special Tender Table episode in collaboration with May Cat, where we are going to make a Thai dessert together.

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: Mom says try everything once. Even if I spit it out and say "Blegh!" I surprise my parents by liking green vegetables like broccoli, beans, and arugula, but not liking kid foods like peanut butter and toast.

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: Fried egg over hot gohan

Favorite food: Plain white sticky rice eaten with my fingers, fresh chicken eggs from our former pet chickens "Fahn" and "Gohan" which translates to Rice and Rice in Cantonese and Japanese. They were so "soft and fluffy." (Mom note: Unfortunately the chickens have since died by way of raccoon attack. We are learning the circle of life early on.)

Recommended reading: Hush! A Thai lullaby by Minfong Ho, the rhyme and rhythm of the story makes me sleepy, and I love hearing the sounds of the different animals.

Best meal(s): Dim Sum with my Mama and Yeye, Satsuma tangerines from my Jichan's prolific fruit trees in Torrance, CA, dried mangos covered in li hing mui powder with my cousin Marty.

Food you’d like to try: All the vegetables growing in the backyard garden. I helped plant a bunch of snap peas, carrots and radishes that I'm excited to try for the first time this spring.

Additional comments: I make a very deep scratchy monster growl. I'm outgoing at home, but very shy with big crowds. If you have fruit gummies, I'm more likely to be friendly. 

(Photo courtesy of A’misa Chiu)

May Cat is a facilitator who works in education, equity & inclusion support. She went to art school in NYC and grew up in Chicago. In her free time she enjoys reading, researching, happy hour, and getting paid for emotional labor. 

May will be presenting at Tender Table on April 20 @ Cardinal Club in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: A first-generation Siamese-American from Chicago.

What will you be presenting on? Thainess

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: Fish sauce in everything.

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: Khai Jiao (ไข่เจียว) which is Thai style omelette with white jasmine rice. I'd add a Thai condiment prik nam pla on top (chili fish sauce & lime juice). This is basically Thai people's cheap ramen noodles -- eggs and fish sauce, because I can never find a Thai person without eggs and fish sauce.

Favorite food: I really, really love Issan food from the Northern region of Thailand, like meat salads: Laarb (ลาบหมู) (minced pork salad), Nam Thok (น้ำตก) (meat waterfall salad). I love them sour, sour, sour. My blood is pretty much made out of lime juice and fish sauce. Once A Thai food cart owner made me laarb, tasted it, contorted her face and said it was very sour while I was asking for more lime. For desserts, I like kanom that are coconut based. My favorite fruit in Thailand is Durian.

Recommended reading: lyrics to Trina songs

Best meal(s):  My best meals are big communal Thai dinners with proper Thai eating etiquettes: main meals like curries, stir fry, salads in the middle and each person has an individual plate of steamed jasmine rice. You transfer each meal with a spoon onto your own plate per bite. It somewhat annoys me when people scoop tons of food onto their own plate before the meal or eat Thai food with chop sticks (enforced racism? that all asian cultures are all the same?) when the spoon is our main utensil. If you share Thai cultural food productions with me, just eat it right with my cultural etiquette, please. Then we can also have Thai beers and I might forgive you for the cultural misunderstanding with the chop stick and vent to you about Columbus'ing.

Food you’d like to try: I'd love to try more Latin American food. I'm not even sure how and where to start.

Additional comments: I think the intersectionality of class is interesting in the Asian-American identity. I think poverty, and the trauma of poverty effects how you can connect to your culture through food, and selectively determine what part of your culture you can preserve.

(Photo courtesy of May Cat)

Teresa Nguyen is a mixed non-binary first generation Viet-Am tenderqueer. They believe every available art medium is a tool for documenting experience, even if no one ever sees it. 

Teresa will be presenting at Tender Table on April 6 @ Compliance Division in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: Just a tenderqueer forever examining diaspora as a way of resistance against forgetting the work my ancestors laid out before I came along.

What will you be presenting on?  I'll be talking about food as a way of making sense of myself, because cooking Viet food is a vehicle for reclaiming my heritage and navigating diaspora. It's been a journey to strip my thesis way of thinking down to basics and focus on instinct for cooking how I remember things tasting and feeling.

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: "That's how I cook, too!!" Any time I talk with other QT/POC folks about how I cook by intuition, affirmation helps me know I'm going in the right direction.

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: Yikes, just one? Fried fish with nước chấm over rice and a side of greens. I grew up in a family of fishermen, so it's the meal that ties my heart to the sea.

Favorite food: Thịt Kho

Recommended reading: Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong, Salt by Nayyirah Waheed, Saga series by Brian K. Vaughan, everything by Bao Phi

Best meal(s): Bún bò Huế, bún riêu, bánh bột lọc...I will throw down for any one of these meals.

Food you’d like to try: More Sicilian dishes. I'm part Sicilian and my Nonna on my mom's side is from the island in Termini Imerese. Squid ink pasta?! Gimme.

Additional comments: Go get it if you want it. I spent way too long letting everyone else around me influence all my decision making, and doing something radical like teach myself how to cook Vietnamese food and find out I was actually good at it...best feeling ever.

(Photo courtesy of Teresa Nguyen: Cháo “It's typically a plain rice porridge, that can be layered with bone broth or veggie stock, and seasoned with soy sauce, green onions, fried shallots, cilantro, white pepper...it kind of depends on your palate preferences. You can honestly dress it how you like. The beauty is in the simplicity, and the love is in the feel good fullness you get from such a staple feel better soup. Be you sick or just needing your basics, this is a warm hug for a tender belly.”)

Elina Lim is a storyteller, social justice activist and badass, dragon lady, advertising project manager. She comes from Singapore, where food is as vibrant as its multicultural and diverse history. Elina started Portland's Invisible Spectrum stories, storytellers of color in the whitest city in America. invisiblespectrumstories.com

Elina will be presenting at Tender Table on April 6 @ Compliance Division in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: I come from Singapore, one of the only city/state/countries in the world, it is multicultral/multiracial and filled with some of the best fusion food in the world - just that we just call it food.

What will you be presenting on? I'll be presenting on my connection with Chinese New Year, as a Singaporean woman and now an immigrant to America. My relationship with food and both countries' people.

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: From my grandmother when stir frying "Don't let the vegetables control you, you must control the vegetables. "

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: Hainanese chicken rice

Favorite food: Hainanese chicken rice

Recommended reading: The Hidden Brain by Shankar Vedantam

Best meal(s): Eating with my Singaporean friends local food back in Singapore. Meals that span hours, talking, eating - incredible.

Food you’d like to try: The best Tacos in Portland. I went to San Jose for 3 weeks for work and had the best tacos I have ever had, I would love to eat more!

(Photo courtesy of Elina Lim: Singapore Hokkien Mee “I'm a Hokkien woman, so this is very dear to me. Hokkien people often have seafood in their dishes, or rich fatty pieces of pork. This has both, noodles fried in a rick seafood stock with large chunks of pork lard with fresh prawns and squid. It is served with belachan - fermented fish chili - and a lime, inspired and introduced by the Malay culture and cuisine in Singapore's multicultural city. SO DELICIOUS.”)

Melika Belhaj is a Moroccan American Muslim writer. Her work explores the dynamics of authenticity, tradition, and identity. She designed, printed, and hand bound her first self-published piece, Binti: Daughter of Arab America in March 2016. Since then, Melika started an Arab American Art Collective called Ya Banat with her sister, Ananas Mustafa. Together they are developing pieces that look at the nuances of North African Arab identity through celebrating the wisdom of their ancestors.

Melika will be presenting at Tender Table on March 10 @ IPRC in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: Melika loves basketball and does not belly dance.

What will you be presenting on? Love letters to my childhood butcher.

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: Always sweat eggplant.

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: Bread with honey and olive oil. Mint tea.

Favorite food: My auntie Tahani’s grape leaves; Fried eggs and khlyeeha; Bread and olives

Recommended reading: ZaatarDiva, Suheir Hammad; My Father, Mahmud Darwish; Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth, Warsan Shire; Food For Our Grandmothers, Joanna Kadi

Best meal(s): Uncle Muhammad’s Maqluba with chicken and carrots, roasted pine nuts and blanched almonds; Auntie Ayda’s Maqluba with ground lamb and eggplant; Auntie Raabia’s lamb tagine with kharshoof; Auntie Aasiya’s lamb bone marrow and hot dried apricots; Baba’s cous cous with lamb and carrots, pumpkin and zucchini, chickpeas and raisins; My friend Chiara’s tomato eggs & her father Ciro’s bread

Food you’d like to try: Sardines on the coast, where my mother and father used to go when they lived in Rabat.

(Photo courtesy of Melika Belhaj)

queer bruja from the desert, daughter of mexican immigrants, Blanca, Stacey, two white names, twins, great grand daughter of an adelita, coyotes, hummingbirds, eleven wolves, dreams, the night sky, her mother loves elvis/the beatles/jackson 5 & house music, her sister is her soulmate, and she laughs. a lot.

Blanca Stacey will be presenting at Tender Table on March 10 @ IPRC in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: I laugh a whole lot, pretty loudly and am unapologetic about it...I used to be deathly afraid of the ocean until one summer when I ran stark naked into her waves while ghostly jellies floated about the shore.

What will you be presenting on? Mariscos/Seafood from Mexico.

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: Make sure you make enough to share and everything tastes better with limón y salsa.

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: En la playa comiendo huachinango frito con tortillas recien hechas, arroz, vegetales, salsa y  limón.

Favorite food: Chiles en nogado, guavas, cafe de olla, any fresh sushi rolls with spicy tuna & ANYTHING made from yaca.

Recommended reading: Carlos Fuentes' 'Chac Mool', Ernesto Cardenal's 'Canto Cósmico', anything by Yesika Salgado (her instagram feed is amazing), Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodriguez' 'Dear Woke Brown Girl', Alfonsina Storni's 'Peso Ancestral', & 'Forgetting the Alamo, Or, Blood Memory' by Emma Perez.

Best meal(s): The tres leches cake from Pambiche!

Food you’d like to try: Different ceviche plates from Latin America and fruits from different countries.

Additional comments: I dislike getting coffee to go, I much rather make it at home and sip it quietly without 'prisa'.

(Photos courtesy of Blanca Stacey Villalobos)

Andrea Telles is a sensitive xingona that is not to be messed with. She sleeps best with books in her bed and tacos in her belly and will never ever ever say no to a game pool. Andrea very likely likes your mom and Mexican food more than she likes you, and is forever counting down the minutes until she can put on her pajamas again.

Andrea will be presenting at Tender Table on March 10 @ IPRC in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: Queer Chicanx pocha from California, blood of the colonized and the colonizer in my veins, lover and fighter at once, a romantic.

What will you be presenting on? I will be presenting on tacos de carne asada and stories of my father.

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: Clean as you go, Andrea!

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: Arroz con pollo in tomatillo sauce, with tortillas obviously.

Favorite food: My mother's pozole. When I miss her I go to my local Mexican restaurant to eat pozole and it's like being able to give her a hug.

Recommended reading: Anything Audre Lorde, but have been falling asleep lately with her collected poems in my bed; Anything by Eduardo Galeano, but I especially love Days and Nights of Love and War and Open Veins of Latin America; Spiral Bound by Dessa; This Bridge Called My Back by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua

Best meal(s): Those made in the company of loved ones. It could be beans and tortillas, but if the room is filled with loved ones, there's noting better at that moment.

Food you’d like to try: I'm terrified of head cheese, but I'll try anything twice, so...

(Photo courtesy of Andrea Telles)

Bonnie Dada is a nurturing cat lady who loves to cook. She is politically active and is married to the best human being on this planet.

Bonnie will be presenting at Tender Table on February 24 @ IPRC in Portland, OR.

“It's called inari but my mom would call it comfort.”

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: I am a confident woman who has come from generations of strong women.

What will you be presenting on? Comfort sushi.

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: Cooking for others will always make you happy.

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: Burritos in California.

Favorite food: Fuul.

Recommended reading: Right now it has to be Women, Race & Class by Angela Davis.

Best meal(s): Any pizza at Lovely’s with a soft serve to finish.

Food you’d like to try: Anything in another country. 

(Photo courtesy of Bonnie Dada)

Becky Win is a poet and performance artist.

Becky will be presenting at Tender Table on February 24 @ IPRC in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: The birthplace of movement.

What will you be presenting on? Rice.

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: Be patient.

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: Raw oysters, lemon, white wine.

Favorite food: Onigiri.

Recommended reading: A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf. In Praise of Shadows by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki. Currently reading, have not finished, but do recommend Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.

Best meals: Barbecue in Vietnam. In Barcelona, dinner at Iposa with my love. My dad's chao ga. Thai basil, mango, and avocado from my childhood backyard. Spam musubi at the beach.

Food you’d like to try: This is not something I think about, really, but it would probably be any dish created for Noma: sorrel leaf and cricket paste, cabbage and live ants, botan ebi and flavors of Nagano Forest, etc.

Pamela K. Santos is a sometime writer, full-time KBOO community radio membership director, forever mom, and all-the-time radio host/producer who talks an inordinate amount about being from Queens, NY.  She is always judging your food, but you can judge her food chronicled  as #BombArchipelagoEats on IG @archipelagoeats, random tweets @pamelaksantos on Twitter and web home pamelaksantos.com.

Pamela will be presenting at Tender Table on February 24 @ IPRC in Portland, OR.

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: I'm a Pinayorker, a transnational Filipina born in the Philippines and raised in Queens, the home of hip hop and immigrant wonderland.

What will you be presenting on? Food As Cultural Artifacts (or The Only Language of a Colonized People)

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: Season the shit out of it (implied by my lola and ancestors)

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: lumpia

Favorite food: Anything I've reclaimed from my Filipino heritage and made with my own hands. Which means anything that has a pork ingredient

Recommended reading: Memories of Philippine Kitchens, Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan. Life-changing. Unearthing the history of our food underneath layers of colonialism, trade routes, family history is a process, as I read their journey to write their cookbook. http://www.purpleyamnyc.com/book

Best meal(s): Too many.

1) The healing chicken arroz caldo and any soup I make for my son when he is sick, which are the same dishes I ate when I was little.

2) An intimate dinner home made for a feminist organization I was invited to (now AF3IRM). Whole chickens, succulent potatoes and veggies, with a side of critical analysis and awareness campaigns for women's rights, in a posh SoHo loft with less than a dozen like-minded, strong transnational women.   Salo Salo popup dinner by Chef Yana Gilbuena who made kamayan (we eat with our hands) courses served on banana leaf covered tables. The experience of sharing this food with old and new friends was magical.

3) The first time I made crispy pata (which is a 2-day process) and oxtail kare kare, which my friend complimented was as good as this Philippine-based chain of restaurants.

4) The first Thanksgiving I hosted in Portland with a table of entrees and full stomachs all around. 

5) All the "homecoming" meals when I use to fly back to the Philippines. My late grandfather used to roast a pig (lechon) when I'd come to Bulacan province, all the late night snacking in the palengke, the take-home boxes for the carry-on containing freshly made puto Biñan and other rice treats.

Food you’d like to try: Regional food from every island of the Philippines. Food from indigenous cultures in Asia that were on the same trade routes as the Philippines. Every dish by nouveau Fil-Am chefs in the Filipino Food Movement all over the world.  Fresh toro straight from a sushi market in Japan.

Additional comments: The act of reclaiming implies that at one time it was not yours, not in your possession. I think I'm decolonizing while I am re-remembering what food legacy was always there. It's like remembering the feel of the blanket that was already keeping you warm.

(Photo courtesy of Pamela K. Santos)

Tender Table is a storytelling series featuring women of color and gender nonconforming people of color and their stories about food, family, inheritance. For me personally, food has been a significant vehicle for love, language learning, care taking, and social engagement. It’s a ritual of sharing and learning about one another’s histories and how to take care of ourselves and one another.

The series was started in February 2017. Thank you to everyone who has been supportive of the series so far. I wouldn’t be able to do this without the many conversations, questions, meals we’ve shared.

(Photo courtesy of Stacey Tran: "My parents and I eating longan, lychee, spit roast duck and crispy pork in Vancouver, B.C., 1995")

One sentence to describe yourself and where you came from: Born and raised in Portland, OR. My parents are Vietnamese immigrants who raised me in a bilingual household.

Best piece of advice you ever got about cooking: Use a timer.

If you could only eat one meal forever, it would be: Two eggs fried over medium w/ salt/pepper, Sichuan peppercorns, Secret Aardvark, and rice vinegar over a bed of rice w/ a side of sauteed broccoli in garlic.

Favorite food: oysters, bún bò huế, kimchi soondubu jjigae + banchan, olive oil

Recommended reading: Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong; When Watched by Leopoldine Core; We Were Meant To Be A Gentle People by Dao Strom; Quiet As They Come by Angie Chau; "Dark Fruit: A Cultural and Personal History of the Plum” by Anca L. Szilágyi. Racist Sandwich Podcast episode 8: Writing about Family & Food with Amy Lam

Best meal(s): Cafe Turko’s Mother-in-Law’s breakfast plate + Turkish coffee is hands down my favorite breakfast. When my partner’s family came to visit us we (finally!) booked an amazing prix fixe group meal at Han Oak (wish I took a photo of the menu). The lobster roll at Eventide. Absolutely anything my mom cooks.

Food you’d like to try: No frills escargot.

Stacey Tran is a writer from Portland, OR. Her work can be found in The Fanzine, diaCRITICS, GRAMMA, and The Volta, among others. Wendy's Subway released her first chapbook, Fake Haiku (February 2017).