Latest news with #FamStyle
Refinery29
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Refinery29
Sherry Cola Used To Hide Her Mom's Cooking. Now, It's Her Love Language.
Sherry Cola is beaming. But we're not at some glitzy Hollywood party — it's 9 a.m. at an old strip mall in San Gabriel Valley and she's giving me a tour of her family's beloved order-at-the-counter restaurant. She points out each dish with pride: curry chicken, crispy pork chop, spicy bamboo shoots, wok-fried peanuts, tofu skin meatballs, the list goes on. 'Every order comes with a milk tea and seaweed soup, on the house,' she adds with a smile. Cola said she used to work the counter after school, sometimes making the milk tea for the customers. But it wasn't always like this — the food, yes, but not the pride. 'I remember bringing dumplings with extra, extra chives [to school] and feeling embarrassed they smelled,' she says. 'Embarrassed that my parents had an accent. I'm ashamed I was ashamed. It was a testament to how hard they worked despite not knowing the language. They made something from nothing — and that is the American dream. Now, I get to carry on that legacy.' These days, Sherry isn't behind the counter as often as she was in high school — and for good reason. She's busy filming the next season of Apple TV+'s Shrinking, Netflix's Nobody Wants This, and starring alongside Keanu Reeves in Good Fortune. But she still finds ways to show love for her roots — like bringing her mom as her date to red carpet premieres, including the recent Bride Hard premiere. In this episode of Fam Style, Sherry and I sit down over plates of nostalgic Shanghainese comfort food to talk about family, cultural identity, coming out — and why the food she once hid is now her greatest source of pride. Fam Style spotlights Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) changemakers across entertainment, food, art, and culture. Over shared meals at AAPI-owned restaurants, we sit down with creators, artists, and innovators to talk about identity, ambition, community, and the stories that shape us. Through intimate conversations and the language of food, we highlight the nuance, joy, and resilience within the AAPI experience — one dish at a time.
Refinery29
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Refinery29
Kristen Kish's Return To Her Birth Country Was Beautifully Complicated
When Kristen Kish, winner of Top Chef Season 10 and now its host, traveled to South Korea in June 2022, she was nervous. Adopted at four months by an American family, the celebrity chef had never returned to her birth country — and wasn't sure what she would find, feel, or even understand about a place that was hers and yet also wasn't. 'I thought I was supposed to feel this wave of emotion of 'Oh my god, I'm home.' I thought I was supposed to look out into the world of Korean people and feel like I belonged. But it didn't happen,' she tells me over a lavish spread at Borit Gogae, a cozy Korean restaurant in Los Angeles' Koreatown that specializes in banchan. 'I felt more like a tourist and a visitor, which I certainly was and am. But I felt guilty for not feeling those feelings.' It took her a couple days to realize she couldn't force a moment of emotional revelation. 'Me not feeling anything doesn't mean that I have any less respect for where I come from. I need time to discover it,' she says. But there was one moment that gave her what she didn't know she needed. While visiting a hand-carved stamp shop, she decided to get one made with her Korean name. When the shopowner asked her what it was, she hesitated, nervous to tell her adoption story. 'I didn't want to feel like I was being judged. But he said, 'You belong here,' she pauses, her voice catching. 'That for me was the moment of the trip.' The story didn't make it into her debut memoir, Accidentally On Purpose, released last month, but it speaks to the heart of her improbable journey — one shaped by chance and intention, clarity and ambiguity. In the book, Kish shares more about growing up as a Korean adoptee in a white Midwestern family, navigating her queer and Korean identities, and rising to become one of the most recognized chefs on television. In our first episode of Fam Style, Kish and I sit down to talk about how Korean food has helped her connect to her heritage, the idea of belonging, and the layered journey of coming home — all over a meal that tastes like a memory. Fam Style spotlights Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) changemakers across entertainment, food, art, and culture. Over shared meals at AAPI-owned restaurants, we sit down with creators, artists, and innovators to talk about identity, ambition, community, and the stories that shape us. Through intimate conversations and the language of food, we highlight the nuance, joy, and resilience within the AAPI experience — one dish at a time.
