How chefs Joanne Chang and Grace Young are helping Boston Chinatown restaurants post-COVID

to talk about supporting Chinatown and asian-owned businesses now we're joined in studio 3 by two rather legendary figures both James Beard award winners Joanne Chang Chef owner of flower Bakery and Myers and Chang it's great to see you Joanne glad you're here and we're meeting grace young the stir fry Guru cookbook author food historian and passionate advocate for chinatowns and AA aapi mom and pop businesses it's great to have you Grace too Grace is in town for two events the 30th annual Chef's culinary conference at UMass Amherst yesterday and tonight sold out protecting America's chinatowns at the great Tracy Changs pagu and by the way the person asking her questions tonight marjerie interviewing will be Shirley the young raising funds for Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center again Joan great to see you Grace great to have you thanks for being here thank you thank you well Grace a pleasure to meet you and I must say I've learned that when you decide you're going to become an activist you don't fool around you got the BBC WNYC all things considered the world which is just down the hall for most Vogue magazine food and wine bone Appetit so tell us uh stir fry Guru how you move from from James Beard the cooking to this activism so I'm called The Accidental voice of Chinatown and at the start of 2020 I was going to start working on a new cookbook but um at the beginning of January 2020 because of Trump's rhetoric of calling Corona virus uh China virus Kung flu chinatowns all across the United States emptied out and I live in New York City I'm in Chinatown two or three times a week in Manhattan's Chinatown and I just could not believe that the streets were empty I'd look into restaurants empty it was cold winter the produce vendors standing on the street had no customers and so I started posting on Instagram and Facebook that trying to was perfectly safe and that without our support these businesses would not last and food and wine picked up on this asked me to write an essay um I had this idea that I would uh interview restaurant owners and Shop owners and post their interviews on um my social media in March and posterous Museum uh I had a very very like slight relationship with them they said if you do this we'll put the the interviews on our website and so I ended up in Chinatown on Sunday March 15 wow we didn't realize a few hours after we did the interviews that mayor deasio would put New York City in lockdown so what we were doing were um very important oral Histories on one of Trant Town's darkest days and you know that those interviews changed my life because they were so heartbreaking to hear the owners talk about what they had gone through many of them had said said to me that day we have to close tomorrow because we can't go on with 20% of our usual business and our employees are part of our family they've been with us 10 20 30 years we don't know like what when we'll ever be able to reopen and and I'm one of the most um I'm not an outspoken person I'm very shy I'm very reserved but I realize that someone had to tell their story shy and Reserve what are you talking been watching by the way when I was in law school I practically kept hopkey open I want you to know I was there like once a week you know you live on the border of Chinatown you and Christopher Myers are wonderful husband uh uh Chinatown here experienced the exact same nightmare until people like Mari Walsh the mayor and Michelle woo then city council who stepped in exactly and it's so interesting Grace to hear your perspective because I was I'm not nearly the activist you are and just to observe it as as somebody who lives literally one block from Chinatown and to see that the streets I mean Chinatown is a place that is always open it's always teaming with people on holidays you know late at night early morning there's always so many people and then exactly around March 15th I think it was it just shut down and now everybody shut down but to see these shop owners not only have to deal with what we were all dealing with which is um we all had to shut down but to deal with the racism and then people not coming back that was heartbreaking by the way speaking of coming back race they're not all back I mean despite the fact that the pandemic is theoretically over my understanding is not back we have a a wouldbe president who is talking about Chinese immigrants forming secret Chinese armies which is total fiction like everything else so we're not where we need to be no I was just in Honolulu visiting their Chinatown which is an amazing Chinatown the shops close at 3: in the afternoon wow because of lack of business lack of business um Boston's Chown quiet San Francisco is my hometown um I'm told that in the afternoons it's quiet and there's not much business at night same thing with Oakland's Chinatown and Boston San Francisco New York Honolulu those chinatowns are adjacent to the financial districts and because workers have not fully returned they've lost the lunch business and for cities like San Francisco and Oakland where there's a concern for safety um people aren't coming out at night what a trying to tell you and S my kids are both born in China they're from Chang Shan Hunan Province and when they were little kids and we take them downtown to Chinatown I've told you this j a million times the you could see pride in their little tiny bodies it was it was huge why does Chinatown matter in 2024 as much as it does to you and your colleagues and Joanne why does it matter so much so before Co I would have said Chinatown tells the Chinese American story and in the middle of Co I realized chinatowns are the American story right and in New York City um the first tenement building was built on M Street is that so it's 200 years which is where hop key is by the way on M Street it's like two blocks from Hop key yeah so it was built in 1824 200 years old today and the Irish the Italians the Jews the Germans lived there long before the Chinese what other place can you go in America where you can look at our our story and we are a country of immigrants we're talking to grace young and Joan what about what about Boston's Chinatown and where is it uh I used to work at the heral which is right near the Chinatown and we used to go there for dims all the time at at lunchtime Chinatown is so different now but tell us how does Boston's Chinatown fit in the chinatowns around the country so Boston's Chinatown is relatively small um and pre pandemic I would say it was um filled with little grocery stores a couple of bigger grocery stores and tons and tons of course of restaurants yes little restaurants big restaurants you know the huge two- floor dim suum type restaurants and then like the little hole in the walls um what I have noticed over the last three or four years is that so many of the restaurants which had closed just never reopened I will say one interesting thing that I have seen is that some of the reopened restaurants are now the younger hipper cooler type restaurants um a lot of them do digital ordering or kiosk ordering in fact we just went to dinner at one it used to be a very traditional Chinese restaurant and it's now taken over by a a kind of cooler restaurant that has no servers you walk in and there's a kiosk or there's a QR code and you just place your order online and the people bring the food and you know if you have a question they'll come over but it's so different from the way it used to be and so to Grace's Point like the Chinatown is our story I mean I guess you could say it's kind of reflecting the story of who we are today just as a country with digital you know media and all of that stuff but just the connection wasn't there no surpris you sorry and you read all the time about the struggle of people who are living in Chinatown not making a lot of money getting priced out of the neighborhood it's so true especially in Boston where you know there's only so many square feet and and housing and houses and so so many of the I remember when we started flower some years ago one or two people would uh live near Chinatown and now so many of the staff are now like renting apartments and their apartments that have been refurbished and are probably $2,000 I don't know how much they are but I know they are definitely taking the place of the older people who used to live you know on that note Grayson a story in the in the globe about this issue uh a board member here who's a wonderful Soul Paul Lee is quoted and he talks about the fact you know the issue he doesn't say the first half of this which is it isn't just about patronizing the restaurants is there's this huge gentrification going on obviously housing is a huge problem here as it is virtually everywhere so what is the fix it's a it's a multifaceted kind of thing to preserve Chinatown and it's not simply patronize the businesses right but it is patronizing the businesses and um what I'm observing right now chinatowns are all about Mom and Pop mhm it's a different percentage as opposed like pfchang for example exactly exactly so San Francisco has a thousand family-owned businesses is that so New York City 94% of the businesses are Mom and Pop W in Chinatown we're talking about in Chinatown and and um America used to be all about Mom and Pop but now especially because of the pandemic we are a scroll and click Society or we shop at Whole Foods Trader Joe's we sometimes don't even deal with a clerk we self checkout right but when you go into Chinatown it's it's um a reminder of your your Humanity right some of these are multi-generational businesses and the businesses in Chinatown operate everyone in America who has Mom and Pop is struggling right but Chinatown the profit margins are razor thin these guys work s days a week 10 12 14 hours a the day and they're just barely squeaking by and so I feel like it's our patriotic duty to to go out there and support them but it's not enough is it I mean the point of trying I'm not I'm not at all minimizing how important that is and it's obviously the easiest thing for us all to do but there are a whole bunch of issues including the ability to live a decent life kind of thing that needs to be addressed right does it not yes and we need legislation that supports mom and pop businesses that gives them ADV manages right right how did they do for examp I mean I read I think in one of your things that pfchang got the 10 million Max from the pp payment protection whatever the hell it was called during the pandemic I'm assuming most mom and pop operations in Chinatown didn't have the wherewithal the lawyering the whatever to get those grants yes and that's one of the reasons that I was inspired to do the work that I was doing because in 2020 there was a stat that CNN released that 59% of in independently owned Chinese restaurants had ceased their credit card and debit credit debit card transactions implying that they had permanently closed wow and so these are all one-of-a-kind restaurants these are the heart and soul of America's communities right for Chinese food and meanwhile in the same article it said PF Changs had received this crazy amount of PPP money and I thought to myself if you don't say something we're we're going to lose lose all these little mom and popop businesses and we're going to be left with PF trains that's going to be what people eat when they want Chinese you know if you weren't shy and retiring you'd be fairly good at I mean everybody knows Joan Chang in Boston and Beyond is chin Town part of the what made you and your business tell us so it's funny that we're talking about PF Changs because um part of the reason why Christopher and I opened Myers and Chang is that when we started dating uh he when he wanted Chinese food he would go to pfchangs and I remember the first time he brought home pfchangs for dinner and I said what is this and he said I thought i' get Chinese take out and I'm eating it and I'm thinking this is nothing like what I grew up eating not even close and so I started cooking more at home and the more dinners we had he kept saying what is this food and I said this is just food that I grew up with and he said how come I can't get this anywhere and I said well you definitely can't get it at PF Changs but you know if we open something together let's let's replicate this let's try to figure out like these dishes that I'm making at home that my mom taught me my Aunt taught me um so we we opened up it's kind of a mom and pop it was him and me and just opening up this restaurant near Chinatown um where we wanted to celebrate Asian food the way I knew it and not the way that not that there's nothing wrong with PF chains but it is a it is a very specific type of Chinese food that doesn't always resonate with people who grow up eating we just drop you know before I want we want to discuss your pre- advocacy life in a minute there Grace but before we do what do people do who want I mean other than individual action patronize these businesses as you said a minute ago talk to your legislators that sort of thing what do people do to get involved in this movement of yours if I can call it that um so I think it's just really important to raise public awareness that America's chinatowns are suffering and I partnered with the James Beard Foundation on a social media campaign # support chinatowns plural and we just asked that people post your favorite uh you know custard tart from Huen bakery or a favorite dish that you like to eat at new Golden Gate whatever it is something you like to buy in a shop in Chinatown and post it on social media and remind folks that everybody needs to do this and uh right now the the problem is a lot of these historic chant towns do not have the business that they used to have from the Chinese population because there are other little satellite chinatowns so here you have Quincy and there's another one that China Pearl for example one of the biggest restaurants in chinat town obviously has a big restaurant in quiny forgot I'm sorry well also Dorchester has a huge Vietnamese population um and so they don't and the historic chinatowns like Boston San Francisco new New York rely on tourism and so they just haven't returned to prepandemic num so it's just so important for us and to shop in Chinatown not just for Baby Bo Joy and Lotus root but in Chinatown it's a bargain and everyone's trying to make the most of their money right now when you're going food shopping chin toown you can find Basics from milk eggs uh carrots what whatever you need and it's for less money because Chinese Shoppers or Chinatown Shoppers are very Discerning now grace young I want you to know that IM marging in my contract there's a provision that says anybody relating to food when they come in the studio has to be asked if they have a connection to Julia Child so we doing the mandatory Julia Child question to you uh please respond if you can I have the big answer honestly Julia is uh without Julia I wouldn't be in the food is that absolutely when I was a little girl I discovered joia child on television I grew up eating traditional Cantonese food I watched her mesmerized all my other friends were watching Beverly Hills uh what was it 902 90 her no no watch Green Acres she's much younger than me like all those goofy shows uh Hogan's Heroes but I loved Julia Child and um it was her food was completely exotic from what I had grown up with and so every week I wrote to WGBH and sent a self-addressed envelope because I am that old for that week's recipe oh my God and my mother would let me cook her recipes and the first re recie I made was Julia's Brio and it was can you imagine a little like 8 or 10y old girl that fabulous baking with yeast with my mother had no experience so I followed the recipe and of course it was perfect and the aroma that filled the kitchen and the look on my mother's face and um by the by the time I was like 13 or 14 I was reading in the paper that Julia was coming to San Francisco and I convinced my father to take off from work to bring bring me to this book signing at the White House department store I didn't know what a book signing was so I brought my tattered paperback copy of the French chef and Julia and Paul were there and they signed it wow um and now fast forward 2022 I received the Julia Child award for the work that done to preserve America's chant towns actually my first cookbook when it was published Julia attended a dinner that was done by the that was uh hosted by the American Institute of wine what that feel like I mean it was just extraordinary so I had met her when I was a teenager and she'd signed my book and then I met her when my first book came out and I was able to thank her publicly for the influence that she had you know for for like giving me the inspiration to go into the food field um and then at the yeah and she was there when my first book won an award at an ICP conference but in 2022 when I won when I received the Julia Child award it was presented at the Smithsonian and you have to donate something to the museum so I gave them my autograph copy right oh neat and at at the aiwf dinner uh at the end of the dinner Julia turns to me she goes woo we must in touch Grace do you like that invitation the top three I want are you too young now a Julia Child no no no I was allowed to watch her film when she was doing her TV show um I had worked with the pastry chef Rick Katz and he was helping uh uh support her in the kitchen so I got to watch that and then when I was opening flour um her book baking with Julia kept me going there were times uh you know planting flour that I wanted to give up and I would just open up that book and see these amazing pastries and think I got to do this so it one thing Mar's too shy to ask question I'm not about the stir fry you want to ask about walk well well I I I am a lousy cook and I'm you're not a lousy cook pretty bad you Christopher Kimbell who does the milk Street Kitchen he gave me a walk and I want to tell you stir fres changed my life that it it has changed my life I can cook really good things in the walk and everybody's so impressed I mean the vegetables the Chicken Little you know the sauce on top and it's like one pot and you're done so so I the stir what is this woman say well I'm just a beginner but for beginner Cooks you really get some confidence so my other name is the walk therapist the walk therapist I love it yeah if you go on YouTube there's a video I did called The Walk therapist and it's this comedy about um uh providing therapy for walk newbies but uh you have discovered the secret of great cooking which is that's right a carbon steel walk with one walk you can do everything how many walks do you have Grace young I cannot disclose I know we saw you asked on cbs's something or other yeah is it really that bad huh yeah in it's um in my next lifetime I'm going to collect Chopsticks or Chopstick you know who does actually you're talking to somebody who is never found without Chopsticks I have Chopsticks in my backpack right now she does all the time I bring them out everywhere I go when we're out to dinner it doesn't matter how fancy the dinner is I I very um quietly take out the Chopsticks and nobody notices and then I'm so much more comfortable what you think so Joan Chang Marjorie doesn't like quizzes come on I ask don't give me quiz no I'm going to give Joan a quiz okay uh I would ask you to identify the following person if you if you consume the news you'll know it this person was at the state din dinner for the leader of Kenya yes it was almost arrested by the whoever guards the white house because when she was leaving the dinner with a fellow Chef she violated some White House security protections who would that be oh gosh I did read about the dinner but I didn't read about an arrest do you have any idea who that was who I'm talking about Grace I have no idea well that would be you Grace so could you please share with us your lawbreaking behavior at what happened um actually I was not the state dinner oh you weren to dinner no where were you I was invited uh to attend the um welcoming ceremony on the Southwest close enough that was pretty cool and what crime did you almost commit so as we were leaving I was with Chef Kevin Tien from Washington DC the chef of moon rabbit and we said oh let's take a a photo in front of the White House and we handed our uh phone to a friend who's actually with the state department who I won't disclose her name and she was just starting to take the picture as the right behind us said no photos and actually his hand points to the right like the exit it's on my get out here yeah it's on Instagram it's on my Instagram page it's a hilarious photo um but she clicked it just in time and I guess as he was saying uh no photos and you must exit there's this hilarious look on my face right because I know that we're caught in between this moment of just like yeah it was crazy well well we're really uh the work you do is great and we wish you great success and it's great to meet you and Joan it's always a thrill to have you here Joan Dan and Newton just texted to say Joanne was at Boston Calling the greatest food I've ever eaten fried rice and pork belly um yeah we had fun we made all Myers and Chang Specialties for that's great thank you so much great to see you both pleasure to meet you uh Grace we've been speaking with the James Beard awardwinning Joanne Chang of flower Bakery and also Myers and Chang and the James Beard award winning food historian Chinatown Advocate and author of The Stir Fry Guru uh grace young

Channel: GBH News

Views: 909

Keywords: boston, boston public radio, gbh, gbh news, grace young, joanne chang, chinatown, covid, chinese food, food, flour bakery, julia child, boston chinatown, interview, news

Id: HeIf8_BsqD8

Length: 23min 5sec (1385 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 05 2024