Sarah Ahn Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond. I just got back from Portland, Oregon where I ate a lot of amazing food and had a great time hanging out with the Portland Bombesquad, so my voice is a little froggy. I was there working on a special project that you'll hear more about very soon.
Today's guest is from the West Coast, but by way of California. It's cookbook and social media sensation, Sarah Ahn. You might know Sarah as the creator behind Ahnest Kitchen on Instagram and TikTok where she shares deeply personal stories about her mother's cooking and their life together. She's also the co-author along with her mother of “Umma: A Korean Mom's Kitchen Wisdom and 100 Family Recipes.” “Umma” hit number two on the New York Times Best Seller list. Way to go, Sarah. And it is one of the most acclaimed cookbooks of the season for its beautiful blend of recipes, advice, and emotional essays. It is a love letter to family, resilience, and the way food preserve stories across generations. Sarah is also a social media manager at America's Test Kitchen. She joins me in just a minute to talk about her book, her family struggles and successes, and her approach to social media. My interview with Sarah was recorded at Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center. Stay tuned for our chat.
Today's show is presented by the fashion brand Cartolina. It's finally springtime in my Brooklyn neighborhood, and I could not be happier. The lilacs are out, and everything smells wonderful. To me, spring also means dress season. I can finally put my winter stuff in the back of my closet and think of warmer days ahead. That's why I've loved getting to know Cartolina, the fashion brand that was founded by Margaret Anne Nolan. Margaret started Cartolina as a tribute to her elegant and adventurous mother. The name Cartolina, which means postcard in Italian, perfectly sums up the brand, as it's a love letter to travel style and the memories we make along the way. Cartolina is dedicated to crafting timeless pieces that are made to last. You know the ones; those cherished items that become closet staples. Every intricate stitch, luxe fabric, and unique detail is made with a focus on quality, durability, and lasting beauty. You can explore the world of Cartolina online at cartolinanantucket.com and see for yourself. I did a little browsing last night and I have my eye on a few dresses. There's the Noor dress in peony pink. I love a maxi dress with sleeves, and as most of you know, I love the color pink. Then there's the Adrianna dress, which is 100% cotton and comes in a beautiful print. It's the perfect airy dress for vacation or dressed up a bit for the work week when it is steamy here in New York City. Browse for yourself at cartolinanantucket.com or stop by their flagship boutique on Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. You can also find Cartolina at the Centre Pointe boutique on Nantucket.
A little housekeeping. Cherry Bombe has a special Mom's the Bombe macaron class taking place this Saturday at Atelier Sucre in Manhattan. I've always wanted to learn how to make macarons, so I am very excited about this. Bring your mom, aunt, Godmother, bestie, or come by yourself and hang with me and team Cherry Bombe. Our Mom's the Bombe event is presented by our friends at Bouvet Ladubay. If you're a Bombesquad member, check your inbox for ticket details. Tickets will go on sale to the public starting tomorrow, Tuesday, on cherrybombe.com.
Now let's check in with today's guest. Sarah Ahn, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Sarah Ahn:
Thank you so much for having me.
Kerry Diamond:
What a thrill to have you on the show. I feel like your book is the book of the season.
Sarah Ahn:
I'd hope so. Hopefully the book of the year.
Kerry Diamond:
Hopefully the book of the year. I'm happy to hear you not be modest because anybody who watches your amazing videos or who has read the book, you and your mother and your entire family are clearly very modest people.
Sarah Ahn:
I would say so, yeah. I think we live a very humble life, so it teaches us to be modest. And we live in the richness of the ordinary is what I always say, and that's what Ahnest Kitchen is all about.
Kerry Diamond:
That's so beautiful. Folks just got a taste of how you speak. And you do voiceovers for your videos, and I know how hard you work on those. You've said sometimes you can work up to six hours on those, on just the voiceover alone. We're going to talk about social media later because I know folks are going to want some social media tips from you, but you speak and write in a very poetic way. Have you always been that way?
Sarah Ahn:
I know writing has been one of my strongest skills of mine. When I was in college, my professors would show my essays to the entire class because they've just been stunned by what I wrote, but I never purposely pursued a career in that just because I've always been scared to pursue a creative route because I have no fallback plan if I become a starving artist. But when it comes to my social videos, which we'll discuss a bit more later, I don't script any of my voiceovers, that's just me speaking from the heart. I think it's something I'm learning, that it's a skill that I've always had, and I think I'm not the worst at it.
Kerry Diamond:
The story of how this book came to be was so funny to me because you were moments away from doing this book with somebody else.
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah, we had another publisher.
Kerry Diamond:
You're doing all these videos. Do people start reaching out to you to do a cookbook?
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah, that's exactly what happened. It was a combination of my storytelling and my mom's recipes that were presented online through social media. And I had several publishers come to me, and even till this day I was still not really familiar with the usual way to publish a cookbook because the way it happened for me was multiple publishers approached me and asked me if I was interested in writing a cookbook, and we had settled with one and we've negotiated with them for several months, and just as I was going to sign with them and feed it into my printer to send back that this is finalized, I got an email from America's Test Kitchen wondering if I would be interested in doing a cookbook with them. And at that point, I just knew this was a no-brainer because ATK, America's Test Kitchen, is a powerhouse. And so I moved forward with them, and the rest is history.
Kerry Diamond:
Now, they're also your employer. Did you not think to go to them first? I know you said you weren't sure about the process.
Sarah Ahn:
I didn't. I just let whatever happen, happen. If anyone's interested, they came to me. It's always been a goal of mine to write a cookbook and share my mom's recipes because they're so special, but the whole process of everyone approaching me just happened so quickly that it didn't occur to me that I could approach ATK for it. Looking back, I should have; they're my employer and I know how talented they are, and I couldn't have asked for a better publisher.
Kerry Diamond:
They also might've been mad if you announced, "Oh, hey, I'm doing a cookbook with somebody else."
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah, I was a little scared of that too, but I was like, “Life happens. I'll figure it out.”
Kerry Diamond:
Did you have an agent to start the process with?
Sarah Ahn:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh. Wait, you did this whole thing without an agent?
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah, my boyfriend is a lawyer, and so he just always has helped me with these contracts and negotiating on our own behalf, and so it was a process. Even with social media, I'm still not with a social media manager just because I just feel like the negotiation is not as hard as people make it out to be. But I do have my partner who understands the whole contract and all of that, and so it's very nice to have.
Kerry Diamond:
You are remarkable. You're doing this book, you're minutes away from signing with someone else, and then you hear from your own company they would like to do the book with you. You decide, "Okay, even though we negotiated for months, I'm going to do it with ATK." What did your mom say?
Sarah Ahn:
My mom, her initial reaction to all of this was she was hesitant. She knew that going into this, this would be a labor of love just because Korean food, it's an easy cuisine to conquer, but there's a lot of easy steps to make it good. And she knew the responsibility she had in how this food would be presented, and so she was a little worried at first. And her worries were all correct and very valid. And so that was her first reaction.
Kerry Diamond:
Valid how?
Sarah Ahn:
Like how much work it was going to be, how much we're going to have to sacrifice and commit. All of that ended up being all correct because a mother's always right.
Kerry Diamond:
Cookbooks are a lot of work. How involved was your mother?
Sarah Ahn:
She was very involved. She developed all the recipes in the book. She used to own a restaurant, and so she has a very natural talent to make these recipes. But it was also a cultural shift where we had to adjust to making recipes for an American audience from a Korean cook who doesn't use measuring spoons, and if at that uses grams, but you still had to teach her how to use a scale because her generation doesn't use that. She developed all the recipes, and then she told me a lot of the stories that I had to translate and make it into what it is that's in the book.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you have to take a leave of absence or did you do it and balance it with your existing job?
Sarah Ahn:
I balanced it with my existing job, but I think I got probably two to four hours of sleep a day.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh, Sarah.
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah, it's hard because I worked 6:00 AM to 2:00 PM, and then after that it would just be cookbook mode. I would learn the recipe from my mom. My mom would be developing the recipe as I was working, and then after she perfected the recipe, it's my turn to learn it. And so from 2:00 PM to 12:00 AM, 2:00 AM, I would just be working on the cookbook, writing it, developing it. And I also made video tutorials for all of them for ATK to have just because I really wanted this cookbook to be something so special and different. Do I regret all those times committed to the book? No, but I've definitely got a few new wrinkles and new white hairs.
Kerry Diamond:
We’ll be right back with today’s guest. We are hard at work on our summer issue, and it's our first-ever power issue. It will be out this June, and it's a celebration of folks using their power for good and doing important, interesting, and impactful work. To subscribe and get our four annual issues delivered straight to your door, visit cherrybombe.com.
You and your mom are so close already. Did it bring the two of you closer?
Sarah Ahn:
Oh, absolutely. I learned a side of her that I didn't know. The amazing thing about food is that food has the ability to transport you back in time. That's the power behind food. And so I learned who my mom was before she was an umma, which is a Korean mom. It's almost like I befriended a childhood virgin of herself.
But there's a story in the book where she would collect aluminum as a little kid, and she would collect all these used pots and pans that she would find around the house and around the neighborhood, and then she would go running with them, these big pots and pans in her little three-year-old five-year-old body, and she would sell them to a silkworm street vendor. She would trade the aluminum for the silkworms that she would eat as a snack. And so there's just a lot that I learned about her from what was considered a snack for her back then, which were these silkworms, and the thought of her running with all these little pots and pans. It defended her childhood version, and so in a way, I got closer to her because I learned a side of her that I didn't know before, and that was all thanks to food bringing us back in time.
Kerry Diamond:
Your family stories are so layered, they're so emotional, in some cases, harrowing. They're connected to the Korean War, they're connected to history. How did you handle that part of it? Because those weren't conversations you could just have as you and your mom were trying to figure out the measurements for your kimchi grilled cheese, for example.
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah. They were filled with a lot of tears. So many tears were shared between my mom and I where my mom would forget about this memory that she had, but she would have a bite of this food, and then it takes her back in time, like I mentioned earlier. When we usually finished developing a recipe, my mom would sit down with me and just be like, "Oh yeah, I remembered a time when this happened, and there's a grain of rice was considered a luxury to us," and then she would just go on and on about it. And a lot of these memories that she had forgotten about would come back to her, and she would share that with me. And there would be a lot of tears shared, a lot of tissues. And as she was sharing with me those stories, I would be writing them. And that's what ended up in the book.
Kerry Diamond:
It's interesting how your book is such a reaction to the trendiness of food. It's almost a commentary on that. Korean food has become very popular, as you've talked about a lot, but you really want people to remember how these dishes came to be and why they came to be, things like kimchi, for example. Was that something that was in your mind as you were writing this book, or is that something that came to you as you were going through all the material you had collected?
Sarah Ahn:
It's a combination of both. I did go into it wanting to teach people that kimchi, just one example, is more than just a trending food. You see kimchi all the time on social media, you see it being marketed as a probiotic food, but for Koreans, even to this day, we don't eat it for probiotics, today we eat it because it tastes good. But back then, even just one generation ago, and my mom's generation, they ate kimchi because that's the only food that they had to get them through the harsh winter months. It's the one food that signifies our identity, our pride. And there's so much history to it that I didn't want people to forget, especially as Korean Americans, where this identity of being Korean could easily become diluted if we aren't intentional with it, whether that's learning the language or learning the food. I went into it wanting people to know the history of the food and its importance.
Kerry Diamond:
Your grandmother had a very challenging life. She didn't want to teach your mother her recipes, so I'm curious, how did your mother become such a talented chef?
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah, my grandmother is someone who was very talented in cooking. Back then in Korea, just to preface this, the majority of the women did all the cooking. They're the ones who really founded Korean cuisine. To stand out as another woman who is great at cooking, I think was remarkable, and people would line up just to try her food. I think the talent just passed from one grandma to my mother. My mom has always been told by others that she has son-mat. Is the taste of the hands. And when you say someone has son-mat, it means that the taste of their hands make the food taste so much better, but essentially it means they have a very natural talent and connection to the food and for cooking. And so I think my grandmother had son-mat, and that passed down to my mom who also has son-mat.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you have son-mat?
Sarah Ahn:
My mom says I don't.
Kerry Diamond:
Mom.
Sarah Ahn:
My mom says I don't, but she does say that I have a talent for finding what the missing ingredient is to make it from an okay recipe to a stellar recipe. I could be a good critic, but in terms of cooking, I leave it to my mom, and I'll market the recipe.
Kerry Diamond:
Now, I know your mom, she had a restaurant when you were younger. Did you work in the restaurant? Did you get to learn how to cook with your mom or was she one of those moms who did not want you learning how to cook?
Sarah Ahn:
She said the same thing as my grandmother where she didn't want me to learn how to cook, so I was never allowed in the back kitchen to even prep. She only asked me if I ever did go to the restaurant, which I did several times a week, she only let me manage the cashier.
Kerry Diamond:
Where was your mom's restaurant?
Sarah Ahn:
It was in Riverside.
Kerry Diamond:
In California.
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
And she had it for 10 years?
Sarah Ahn:
A little over 10 years, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
That's a long time, yeah. As your whole family learned, restaurant work is really challenging and backbreaking. Is that why your mom eventually left the restaurant?
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah, she eventually left it because it really broke apart our family. Like you mentioned, it's backbreaking. It's so much more work than it appears. There was no vacation days. And making that profit was also always a challenge because there's so much material that goes into it. From the meat to the prep to managing employees, all of that is a lot.
Kerry Diamond:
How old were you when she closed the restaurant? Or did she sell it?
Sarah Ahn:
She sold the restaurant, and I was in college, I remember. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. She owned that restaurant during some really pivotal years in your life, some really formative years.
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah, absolutely.
Kerry Diamond:
What was that impact on you?
Sarah Ahn:
I write about it on my website, where I realize you can't really plan for life. There's just so many moments where I learned about just the hardships of life, and in times when I was in middle school and I questioned my parents and asked them, "Why didn't you see this coming? Why didn't you plan for this?" And then I later realized that you just really can't plan for life, and life is just getting through one step at a time. And so there's so much I could say about it, but it's hard to capture it in words, but it really taught me a lot about just the gravity of life and how low it can take you sometimes when life gets challenging.
Kerry Diamond:
You were a very creative child, and you picked up a video camera at a young age. Your parents even encouraged you to become a filmmaker. And why did you decide not to pursue that path?
Sarah Ahn:
It's funny, I just had this conversation with my mom in the car, and she told me, "If we had a bit more money, I think you would've maybe pursued it." Pursuing a creative career or a creative even major at a college, it was very scary for me at that time because at that time, social media didn't really exist either. This was 2014 when YouTube at most is what we had. There was no TikTok, there was no Instagram Reels. I've always loved making videos, but going into the film for me was just way too risky. There's so many people who wanted to be in film. Social media wasn't a thing, so thinking of social media editing didn't even come into my mind. And I knew that if I went this route and I didn't make it, I would be considered a starving artist, which I didn't want, and so I pursued a much safer career in a different major, public health. And I picked that major because it was the only major that had food involved. And so I just couldn't take that risk.
Kerry Diamond:
It's so interesting, we've had a lot of women over the years who are the daughters of immigrants who talk about their parents completely discouraging a creative path, but your parents were the opposite. Why was that?
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah. My parents, the thing about them is that they think very differently. And that's why I live at home with them, because it's very nice to live with them. And they think so outside of the box. They came to America because they were so sick of Korea's very rigid office culture and expectations, and so they always knew that I needed to pursue something that my heart desires. And they always told my brother and me that we shouldn't become a doctor, engineer, or lawyer because there's so many other careers beyond that. And so they knew from the start that following what your heart wants will give you a happy life.
Kerry Diamond:
And we know your brother from social media. He did the opposite of you. He is a doctor today.
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah. He has a very different approach with life, and one that I respect where he says, "My hobbies are outside of my work. I'm going to work hard in a job that's going to give me stability and I could find much my happiness maybe there, but also outside of work," which I can't disagree with.
Kerry Diamond:
Today, you do have an incredibly creative job, both what you're doing for the cookbook, what you do for your own social media, and what you do for America's Test Kitchen. It is so interesting to me that it just took you a little bit of a detour to get to that creative life.
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah. My heart eventually took me back to where I was supposed to be. It's weird how that works, but that's what happens when you follow your gut. Because I worked in public health and then I worked in tech for a bit, and I just knew in my heart that this wasn't where I was supposed to be, and so I quit those jobs. And then I just followed my gut, and it led me on this path very naturally.
Kerry Diamond:
When did you start writing about food? What led to that moment?
Sarah Ahn:
That was in 2018. I graduated in 2018, and I was so miserable at my first full-time job in public health, and so I would come home, watch my mom cook, and I started writing about it. And that was my outlet and what started Ahnest Kitchen's blog.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you know much about your family history at that point? Had your parents been open with you?
Sarah Ahn:
No. Not at that point, no, no. And I was just reconnecting with my Korean identity at that point.
Kerry Diamond:
There was a very pivotal trip to Korea. Did that happen around this point? When did that come?
Sarah Ahn:
That was in 2017. My mom's cousin, who I call samchon, is the name that us Koreans call our uncles or male cousins to our mom. He was very, very kind enough to book me a ticket to Korea. And he showed me all of Korea. And this was my first time going there as a full-grown adult. He took me to the DMZ, which is the border between North and South Korea. I saw parts of North Korea. He took me to all the different Korean barbecue spots and all the different musicals and festivals. And we celebrated Chuseok, which is a celebration of autumn in Korea.
It was the first time I felt at home in a place that wasn't home. I felt my roots as a Korean. I felt so connected in a way that was so unexplainable. Even though this was technically a foreign country to me, everything there just made sense. At home, home feels like Korea in a way because I live with very Korean parents, but being in Korea, everything just clicked that I am Korean; this is where my home is, this is where my ancestors were. And so that trip really changed my mind about who I was and really sparked a moment within myself that I am Korean, and I have so much pride in it. And so I came home feeling so proud of who we were. And ever since then, I was very eager to share Korean recipes, Korean culture, and whatnot.
Kerry Diamond:
You start writing about your mom and her recipes. How did she feel about that?
Sarah Ahn:
Oh, she was very happy. She was very eager. At first, she was confused with what I was asking of her to measure everything out, but she was very happy to share them with me, and she saw how passionate and alive I was. There was this light in my eyes that she hadn't seen in a while, and so she was very, very eager to help me.
Kerry Diamond:
You're doing this blog. When did you make the leap from the blog to social media and making the videos that we know you so well for?
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah, the blog started officially in 2019, and then I made the leap in 2022. I never started Ahnest Kitchen as a social media channel, it always started as a blog. And I think it'll always be that way, where my writing will always shine when I write it, then tell it as a social media video. But I started it in 2022 when I took my mom to Korea. And I really wanted to share that experience with others. And that's when my storytelling shined, and that's when we got our first viral video.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us about that.
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah. My mom hadn't been back to Korea in 30 years. Both my parents have been just working hard in America, and so the idea of going back to Korea never really occurred to them, but I saved enough money to at least take my mom back in 2022. And I documented all of that. And I share that experience online where I talk about how, for some of us, we're not able to go back to our home country or vacation in 30 years because that's a major privilege, thus I may not realize. And when you do get to that point where you are able to take your parent back to their home country, they're going to be maybe a bit older, and you are going to be a parent to them, where you teach them all the new technologies.
And I showed in the video of me teaching my mom how to use the touchscreens on the airplane, because to her, she was very unfamiliar with that. How to buy a subway card, because back then, the Korean subways didn't have that system. All of that was shown online, and it was just a very heartfelt message of being able to take your parents back and just the meaning behind all of that. It blew up, and then people resonated with i,t and the rest is history.
Kerry Diamond:
And then there was a TikTok trip that you also took. Was that the same trip?
Sarah Ahn:
No, that was just a year later, we were invited by TikTok to go to Korea. That was after the kimbap craze, where we sold out the Trader Joe's kimbap, where people couldn't get it for months.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell everybody that story too, because that's a great story.
Sarah Ahn:
It really goes back. There's a lot of history to it where when I was in elementary school, I brought kimbap to school. Kimbap is rice rolled in seaweed. It looks similar to sushi, and sometimes people say, "Is it a Korean version of sushi?" Which I don't think Koreans like to hear that because they taste very different. But kimbap, back when I was in elementary school, I was bullied for bringing it to school. People thought it was disgusting. Fast-forward to 2022 or 2023, Trader Joe's comes out with a kimbap. To me, that's amazing because that's something I would've never imagined as an elementary school student.
And so I picked it up from Trader Joe's, and I recorded my mom's reaction to seeing it. And she was just so stunned because, even as Koreans, this is an amazing product because kimbap is never sold frozen, even in Korea, it's always sold fresh or refrigerated, and so the concept of frozen kimbap is amazing to Koreans alone. I recorded my mom's reaction, which was very grand, authentic, and genuine. And the kimbap actually tasted not bad. It was actually pretty good. And all of that was shared online, and then the kimbap was sold out for a couple months. People weren't able to get their hands on it and were wanting it more and more.
Kerry Diamond:
That is so funny. I love that you and your mom are impacting the sales at Trader Joe's. But TikTok takes notice of this and invites you and your mother to come back to Seoul, right?
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah. Yes. They invited us back to Seoul because they took notice of us selling out kimbap. And they were just so proud that we were spreading Korean culture and Korean food in America, and so they brought us back to Korea. And that was a whole different trip where we experienced luxury at an extent that felt so unreal to us, which I write about in the book.
Kerry Diamond:
It did break my heart when I read that story. You tell that story in the cookbook, you couldn't bring your father. And you almost couldn't enjoy the trip as much as maybe you could have, would have, should have because your dad wasn't there.
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah. Sometimes when these stories, it's like my weak points are in there. But yeah, there's always a sense of guilt going on trips. And I think a lot of immigrant kids can feel it, but also beyond immigrant kids, just people who understand the concept of even just the value of a dollar. There's always a sense of guilt, even going to college or going on a trip, which we write about in the book. And that essay was very hard to write, as you can imagine.
Kerry Diamond:
I can. This makes the success of your book so much richer in every way, the fact that you have the success now. And I hope that the success of this book has brought some wonderful things to you and your family, and you've been able to spoil your parents in a way that I think you've wanted to your whole life.
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah, I hope so, I hope so.
Kerry Diamond:
You had that trip. When did you start to work for ATK?
Sarah Ahn:
ATK was in 2021. And at that time, I actually remember I had 5,000 followers on Ahnest Kitchen. I was a baby at that time, but I've grown with ATK, and Ahnest Kitchen has grown with it as well. And so they've always seen the growth of me, but also Ahnest Kitchen.
Kerry Diamond:
What had you been doing for work before you got the ATK job?
Sarah Ahn:
I was just figuring myself out in public health and tech. And then when I mentioned I quit those jobs and followed my gut, I applied for ATK and I've been there since then.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you see a job listing? How did it come about?
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah, I saw a job listing on Google. It was, I don't know what Google calls it, but Google Jobs or something. And I saw it, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, this sounds like something I would actually enjoy." And right when I saw it, I applied immediately, and I made sure that I was the best candidate that they had. And so I spent days working on this test assignment that they assigned to me, working tirelessly, all-nighters to make sure I got the job and that they didn't want anyone else.
Kerry Diamond:
How robust was your social media when you applied for that job?
Sarah Ahn:
It was at its baby stage at that point. I was just making videos purely for myself, and if other people liked it, great. But the videos weren't at all optimized for social, they were just very cut-and-point recipe videos. But ATK saw my potential and they saw that, "Oh, this girl's onto something," and so they hired me knowing that I had this background and I had this "portfolio," I say that in quotes, of my potential work that could help ATK and myself.
Kerry Diamond:
You work remotely because a lot of folks know America's Test Kitchen is based in Boston. Do they see you in Boston very often?
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah, I go every three months or so. We get together, the marketing department, and our creative efforts come together. And it's really great to see all of them.
Kerry Diamond:
And it must be so special to have done the book with all your colleagues there.
Sarah Ahn:
It was very special. And even beyond that, they're just all so talented. The process was very different. Because ATK is a powerhouse as their own food media company that makes cookbooks, media, YouTube shows, shows on PBS and whatnot, they took care of all the photography, the food styling, even hiring a Harvard professor to translate all the Korean into English, art direction, even buying all the dishware from Korean shops, all of that was handled by them; it didn't come out of my mom and I.
Kerry Diamond:
Sounds like they put a lot of intention into the project.
Sarah Ahn:
So much. I don't think I could have asked for a better publisher. And I don't say that because I work at ATK or because I'm being paid to say this, truly, genuinely believe I don't think I could have had a stronger book with another publisher.
Kerry Diamond:
But also took a lot of pressure off you. I remember one of the most stressful parts of doing our cookbook was all the shoots and then having to get photos approved. You really didn't have to worry about that because you had this incredible team that you trusted.
Sarah Ahn:
To some degree. I still sat in all those meetings. Every time we had the shoots, everything was done remotely, and so those shoots would start at 5:00 AM for me because for them, that's 8:00 AM. And I would watch everything remotely. And in Korean cooking, there's a lot of knife work. If you're making a dish like bibimbap, which is mixed rice, the carrots need to be cut very... They need to be julienned very precisely, and I would have to send it back sometimes and say, "The carrots aren't really cut to the way that Koreans would cut it." And so there was a lot of back and forth that happened, no less.
Kerry Diamond:
What were your expectations for the book?
Sarah Ahn:
I knew going into this, and anything that I produce, I always want to exceed everyone's expectations. I want to always create a product where I finish it and leave with no regrets. My expectations for this book was just that. Once we finished everything, I walked away and I said, "I couldn't have done a better job than this." And so I'm really proud of what I created, and so my expectations were just whatever happens at this point happens. It's not out of my control. My mom and I tried our best.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about some of the amazing food that's in this cookbook. You were very gracious and shared your kimchi grilled cheese sandwich with us for the last issue of our magazine. And I know that's a favorite recipe of yours because you worked so hard on it. And a lot of people think grilled cheese; how hard could it be? Tell us what went into that recipe.
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah, the kimchi grilled cheese recipe was actually our hardest recipe to develop in the book out of 111 recipes, but it's one of the easiest recipes to make. But it was the hardest because we're combining two cuisines that are really opposite of each other. We have the Korean cuisine where you bring in the kimchi, it's tangy, it's fermented, it's sour, and then there's the American cuisine that uses ingredients like sourdough bread, butter, and cheese; ingredients that are fatty, rich. And bread is something that my mom and I are not familiar with. My mom does not bake. We don't even know what sourdough bread was at that time. And so finding all those ingredients, finding the right cheese, we spent over $100 on finding the right cheese. And it ended up being Muenster cheese, a cheese we never... We didn't even know anything about that cheese. It took us many trial and errors to get to that point. And we wanted a grilled cheese to be a standout, and that's exactly what we achieved after many tests.
Kerry Diamond:
I love one of the tips in there. You have to re-season the kimchi, which is so interesting, because anyone who loves kimchi knows how fully flavored kimchi is.
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah, a lot of recipes don't call for this. And when we tested those recipes, we were just like, "What happened to the kimchi flavor?" Or it would be drowned in sesame oil, and we quickly realized sesame oil is not the fat that you want to use. But when you cook it in the butter and then it's sandwiched between this rich cheese, then that's sandwiched between this really rustic bread, the kimchi flavor becomes muted significantly. And you really want a balance of the two where you can still taste the cheese, but you can still taste the kimchi complementing that cheese. But when you mesh that all together, the kimchi flavor would become muted. It would become almost diluted. And so we re-season it with just a little touch of onion powder, garlic powder, a little bit of fish sauce and dashida, which is beef stock powder. And the kimchi lives again, and you could taste the liveliness of it in the sandwich.
Kerry Diamond:
This goes back to you telling us that you're a good ingredient sleuth when it comes to working on recipes and finding out what that missing ingredient is.
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah. We add sugar in the end. And that was my call because I was like, "There needs to have a little bit more balance." And my mom was like, "Oh my gosh, you're totally right." Koreans typically add sugar in their sandwiches not to add sweetness, but it's to balance out the flavors to bring out the flavors of others. That little touch of sugar was something I added towards the end of testing.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about another recipe. There's so many incredible recipes in the book. From watching your videos, it seems like your mother does not let you cook at all in the kitchen. Is there anything that you cook when she's not around?
Sarah Ahn:
Well, fun fact, I retested all the recipes myself. My mom developed all the recipes, and then I learned it, and then I sent it to ATK. ATK tested all the recipes to validate them, and they sent it back to me and they said, "Now you make all the recipes with your mom on your side to see if a regular home cook who doesn't have a professional background in restaurants or culinary school can make it." They had me retest all the recipes. It was a lot of work, but I quickly learned that Korean food's very easy to make.
But one of my favorite recipes that I retested was from the baking section. My uncle, who is a pastry chef, a pretty well-known one here in Orange County, he developed all the desserts in this recipe that uses baking, pastries, and yeast. And my favorite one is the milk cream donuts, which has two inches of cream. We made a video about it of a store-bought version, and that also sold out. To make a better version and bring in my uncle, it tastes phenomenal, is one of my favorites.
Kerry Diamond:
Is there anything you make at home as a dish you love? Something comforting, something to eat after a busy day at work.
Sarah Ahn:
I would say there's two dishes. Something that's quick and easy, I've always made the egg rice, which is gyeranbap. It's just a very easy recipe where you mix cooked rice with sesame oil, soy sauce, and scrambled eggs. And we top it with avocado, which is our little touch to it. Makes it really filling and homey. And it tastes so good with kimchi.
And then our other favorite one that I love to make is kimchi stew. That one is just so nostalgic. You use fermented kimchi and you create a stew out of it, but you also cook the pork belly in butter, which is how my mom has always made it. And it tastes so creamy, yet so tangy, sour, and just delightful.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us why you and your mom love Costco so much. I have to confess, I've never been to a Costco. I live by myself in a typical New York City apartment, so there's no room for a 12-pack of paper towels or things like that.
Sarah Ahn:
That makes sense. Yeah. No, we love Costco because... I can't explain it. It's like, why do you love someone? Because they're just amazing and they offer so much. And that's why we love Costco. It's something that we've always gone to. We've always shopped at Costco. I think it's something that Koreans in particular are fond of. We only shop at two places, Costco and the Korean market. Costco because it's affordable. The products that are pretty decent. They pick great products. And it allows us to make a lot of foods on a budget. We love Costco for those reasons.
Kerry Diamond:
You're breaking the hearts of the Trader Joe's fans.
Sarah Ahn:
Yeah, but more and more Koreans are liking Trader Joe's. My mom is saying, "Oh, can we go to Trader Joe's? I saw this young Korean mom buy this and that," and so it's becoming a thing. We're slowly getting into it.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, let's talk a little social media advice for folks who would like to get better at their social media. I don't know if you've spent any time thinking about this or dissecting it, but what do you think the secret to your success is?
Sarah Ahn:
Being 100% yourself. Because there's so many people online who have this very similar social media persona, but being yourself is very, very important. And honestly, the hard skills of social media, if you look at every video, there's some degree of similarity of what makes a video go viral. And so with my videos, I talk about heavy things, but there's typically a hook in the beginning where the first sentence captures the audience. Every video has clips that are less than a second long. Sometimes it's a bit longer, but typically a second long or a little less. The voiceovers, like I mentioned earlier, I don't script any of them because that allows me to be authentically myself and for me to speak from my heart.
And so when you combine all of that, the hard skills, being yourself, and creating voiceovers that resonate with people where you're speaking from the heart, you will probably do well on social media. There's, of course, a lot of drawbacks to this. You have to give up parts of your privacy as wel,l and you have to be ready for any criticism. And get ready for people to make a lot of weird assumptions about you.
Kerry Diamond:
Is there anyone you learned from or anyone you looked to as you were getting your feet wet in social media?
Sarah Ahn:
Not anyone in particular, but I am a consumer of social media where I'm regularly on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube just watching content from different creators. I do think that's a big thing that helps a lot because you realize what's trending, realize what people are wanting and what people are watching, and that affects how you edit and what you present.
Kerry Diamond:
And do you pay attention to trends, things like trending music, trending videos?
Sarah Ahn:
I do pay attention to it, but I don't particularly dance to trending dances or do trending music, but it is good to know what people are up to.
Kerry Diamond:
In terms of developing your aesthetic, because you do have such a specific aesthetic, and like we talked about earlier, you did take an interest in at least your video camera early on, were there movies you look to or artists? Do you have a sense of how your aesthetic developed over the years?
Sarah Ahn:
That one is an interesting question. I remember I read an article about Beyonce's songwriter, and she said that for her to get her ideas, she went to the strip club, and at the strip club, she got the best idea to write the song. And that's the same approach I take with my creativity, where I actually don't-
Kerry Diamond:
Strip clubs, that's your secret?
Sarah Ahn:
Not strip clubs, but a lot of my ideas actually come authentically as I'm walking my dog, taking a shower, or listening to music in my car. Most of my ideas actually come that way. And I actually don't look at other content creators who are in the same niche as me because that really influences my original ideas that I don't want that influence. I want my ideas to come from my own surroundings and my own observations, not what I see on social media. And so when I developed the cookbook, I also didn't look at other cookbooks, especially Asian cookbooks, because I just couldn't have it impact my creativity.
My aesthetic when it comes to making my content is not looking at what other people do and for me to go out in things that make me happy, which isn't the strip club, but it's walking my dog, driving my car, taking a nice shower. All my ideas come from there. And the instant I have a great idea, a great topic, I write it down in my phone so that I have a bank of ideas. And those ideas, I always question should I share or not? Is this too vulnerable? And if you question it too much, maybe don't share it on social media, but it tips the line of where it's a vulnerability that gets people thinking and thinks outside the box, it's something that I'll upload. Why I still live at home at 27 was a video that I made or not being able to speak fluently in Korean and its impact on my mom and I's relationship. All of that was shared online where I share a weakness of mine perhaps, but there's a really big reason why this weakness is important to discuss, something like that.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, Sarah, people can tell we have barely scratched the surface of you, your beautiful work, your mom, all this incredible food, and the gift you have given us in “Umma,” this spectacular cookbook. We didn't even talk about your famous dog, who-
Sarah Ahn:
MayBee.
Kerry Diamond:
... your social followers know and love. We don't have time for speed round, but I'm going to ask you two questions from the speed round. What are you streaming these days? Since you're such a visual person. Do you have time to watch anything?
Sarah Ahn:
No, I actually tried... This goes to show you how involved I'm in social media. Did you know one of the biggest competitors to Netflix is TikTok? I tried watching something on Netflix. Everyone's obsessed “When Life Gives You Tangerines.” It's a Korean drama. They said it's a very, very similar upbringing to mine, where she's working hard or something like that. I tried watching it. I watched the first two episode,s and I really couldn't watch it, and I really just wanted to go on TikTok.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you think TikTok has hurt your attention span?
Sarah Ahn:
I think it has. I think when you're so consumed into social media, it affects you in that way, if I had to be completely honest. And so I'm not streaming anything, I'm scrolling.
Kerry Diamond:
It's so interesting that you say that because your cookbook demands attention. You cannot just-
Sarah Ahn:
Yes, it does.
Kerry Diamond:
... dip in and out of that cookbook.
Sarah Ahn:
Yes, yes, you're right. That demanded all my attention. But when it comes to free time, I find it very hard to sit down and watch something because I'd rather be scrolling.
Kerry Diamond:
Interesting.
Sarah Ahn:
I'm not streaming. I'm scrolling on TikTok.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. That's a very honest admission. Thank you. Okay, last question, and we ask everybody this. If you had to be trapped on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be and why? And you can't say your mother.
Sarah Ahn:
I would probably have to eat with the current obsession, which is Ed from the “Culinary Class Wars.”
Kerry Diamond:
I don't know Ed from the “Culinary Class Wars.” Is that a TikTok thing?
Sarah Ahn:
No, it's not a TikTok thing. He was on a show on Netflix. And the way he approaches Korean food with modern tricks, it's admirable and very respectable.
Kerry Diamond:
We have to watch that. Okay, I don't know about Ed, but we're going to let you hang out on the island with Ed.
Sarah Ahn:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
No doubt the folks from ATK would come and find you because you are a treasure. Clearly nobody wants you lost on a desert island. Well, Sarah, thank you so much. Congrats on all the success. Please give your mom the best from the Bombesquad. And I can't wait to see you again soon. Maybe we can even go to Costco, next time I'm-
Sarah Ahn:
That'd be fun.
Kerry Diamond:
... in your neck of the woods.
Sarah Ahn:
Thank you so much for having me.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to Cartolina for their support. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Joseph Hazan is the studio engineer at Newsstand Studios. Our producers are Catherine Baker and Jenna Sadhu, and our editorial coordinator is Sophie Kies. Thanks for listening, everybody. You're the Bombe.