Hidden Apron Radio

Lina Goh and John Ng, who run Zen Box Izakaya, the only Japanese-style pub of its kind in Minnesota, met many years ago in an online chat room long before Tinder was but a twinkle in many a lonely single’s eye.  A long-distance romance blossomed into a move from San Francisco to Minnesota where they opened Zen Box Japanese Eatery, a quick lunch service spot in the iconic Minneapolis Skyway.  At the time, they specialized in Bento boxes and have since shifted their focus towards traditional izakaya fare (think small, shareable plates) as well as Chef John’s specialty: Ramen.   This episode is chockful of info as Lina and John shared not only their insights into starting restaurants but also their backgrounds as non-Japanese lovers of food trying to establish a misunderstood cuisine in the land of 10,000 lakes and how they’ve applied their accounting/architecture background to their business.  We talk about how they conducted their initial research, designed that first menu by creating a balance between the traditionally Japanese and the local palate, their approach to learning and education, and their much lauded community work with the MN Restaurant Assoc. and the St. Paul Culinary College.  Even if you aren’t interested in practicing the fine art of ramen or think Japanese food is defined by your local deli’s sushi counter, this episode has a lot to teach in terms of business ideas and more importantly, their wisdom on the beauty of taking chances, falling in love with your work, and the process of learning rather than being married to an outcome.  Tanoshinde kudasai…please enjoy my conversation with Lina and John.   ----   For more information including notes to the show, please visit hiddenapron.com/podcast.

Chef AC Boral (Long Beach, CA) is the creator of the RICE & SHINE Pop-up Brunch Series.  Previously a graphic designer, AC began hosting his popular brunches on the West Coast featuring Brunch classics with a Filipino-American flair as a way of introducing guests to the feelings and flavors he grew up with.   From RICE & SHINE (Filipino-American Brunch Party) to Naks Tacos (exploring the culinary connection of the Philippines and Mexico) to concept menus like a Wu Tang Clan tribute dinner, AC has fed thousands across the country and center around the Family and our shared identities as diners.

In this episode we talk about:
* His thoughts on Filipino-American cuisine and how food relates to identity, 
* How to find inspiration from mentors andfamily, 
* The nuances of creating a brand and identity by experimenting with various concepts,
* Using food to educate folks on culture, and
* The darker side of cooking including the importance of self-care in dealing with the grueling physical and mental challenges.

Grab a steaming bowl of white rice, plop some Longganisa and Egg on it, douse it all with Vinegar and enjoy my convo with Chef AC Boral.

Our guest is Jabber Al-Bihani who started his journey as an engineer and during a trip to Barcelona, took part in a commonplace but nevertheless transformational experience of breaking bread with complete strangers. He’s sought to recreate that experience since then through Komeeda (based on the Spanish word for “Food"), where he gathers people of varying backgrounds to share stories and food at pop-up dinners at local restaurants. The particular dinner where I met Jabber was part of a series called “Displaced Kitchens” which featured newly settled refugees who cooked recipes of their homeland while sharing the struggles they’ve faced. With immigration being a very relevant topic, these dinners - Jabber’s form of “activism” as he calls it - have served to humanize the refugee and connect Americans to people they would normally only hear about on TV.

We cover a lot of ground in this episode and many of these topics are definitely hard to discuss without getting too political. Jabber talks:

- Starting Komeeda and how food has helped heal our deeply divided society,
*Listen in particular to his story of the time a Black Lives Matter Activist sat down to share a meal with a Trump Supporter.
- Giving back and helping when things seem overwhelming; how to channel your energy and create change if marching in the streets isn’t your cup of tea,
- His experiences balancing between a conservative upbringing and a rapidly changing world,
- And the importance of questioning your own beliefs.

Most importantly we talk about just being and doing “you”, which is all we can really strive to do. Listen up and we hope you enjoy this episode!

More information can be found at hiddenapron.com/podcast, contact us at [email protected], or catch us on Instagram @hidden_apron.

OH SNAP!  We just hit our TWENTIETH episode!  Didn’t think we’d make it this far?  Well neither did we!  To the hundreds of you who have been downloading our episodes, thank you so much for tuning in.  We hope that these episodes are at the very least, educational, and hopefully, as inspirational to you as they were to us. 

This week’s episode highlights the many things that characterize Hidden Apron: tangents and twisting paths, serendipity and “success”, and not entirely being sure where the delicious roads of our lives will lead.  Our guest for today is Seth Syberg, who caught my attention at a Food Tech Connect event here in NYC with his story of how he founded, ran with, and grew his company Cocoburg.  Cocoburg produces what they call the world’s only raw, vegan, paleo, gluten-free, soy-free, Coconut Jerky, which by the way, is sourced, handled, and produced in the Philippines!  They operate under the motto: “Just Eat Real Food".  Now, you may be thinking: "OK, Seth’s probably some hipster, warrior vegan who bikes everywhere and wears Vibrams, hellbent on changing how people eat.  Well, there’s some truth to that.  He does describe his diet as "vegan-ish", bike competitively, and wants to use Cocoburg to offer people healthier snacking options BUT, he also spent two decades in the world of tech doing everything from app/database development, programming, and even teaching.  He describes himself as a complete dilettante having done things like become a car mechanic, a woodworker’s apprentice, a CTO for an e-commerce platform for small farms, and with this current venture, an entrepreneur, a label he himself did NOT realize applied to him until a year into running his company.  Now his product is in Whole Foods, retailing nationwide, and is creating lasting change for his partners in the Philippines.  

It’s a longer episode filled with a lot of unexpected turns.  We talk about:

- A programmer’s approach to recipe testing and building a business,
- How testing for failure actually led to massive success,
- The dilemma of educating consumers a product they’ve never heard of,
- Product development and the challenges of operating in the Philippines,
- Using business for good,
- And just what the hell even is Coconut Jerky?  

Seth is a great example of how there are many, many roads to your destination and you don’t have to fit the textbook formula for your given field.  Play a little!  Give this one a listen, and again, thank you for keeping us rollin' on this unexpected ride of a podcast.

More information can be found at hiddenapron.com/podcast, contact us at [email protected], or catch us on Instagram @hidden_apron.

This episode is a very special, timely, and quite unique one as rather than talking about the consumption of food, we’ll do a full 180 and talk about the abstinence from it! Many of you might be aware that we are nearing the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting, and so we are joined not by one, but TWO guests!

First, we have Doha Salem, a clinical dietitian currently with North Memorial Medical Ctr., MN. She’ll cover many oft-overlooked parts of Ramadan specifically around the nutritional components of fasting:

- The physiology during a fast
- The benefits and risks
- Preparing, observing, and exiting a fast safely
- Mental preparation

If you are very familiar with Ramadan but never thought about its effects on your health or perhaps you’re thinking of going into a similar type fast, give this deeper dive a go.

Right after her is a friend of mine James Anunciacion, a husband, father, currently working in the field of Planning/Logistics for General Mills, and who actually began observing Ramadan well into his adult years. James also accomplished the amazing feat of getting himself through a lifestyle transformation program a few years back, losing over 50 lbs. in just 6 months. We talked about:

- Ramadan's cultural, mental, and spiritual meaning for him
- Balancing it with the demands of a job and a growing family
- Physical fitness
- Ramadan as a teachable moment

For those who think that Ramadan is a time to be lazy and eat a ton of greasy food when the sun sets, definitely give his talk a listen. Listening to both Doha and James’s stories will give you a unique and varied perspective on Ramadan. Ramadan Mubarak!

More information can be found at hiddenapron.com/podcast, contact us at [email protected], or catch us on Instagram @hidden_apron.

If this is the first time you’re tuning in, you might want to check out the previous episode as this is part two of a two-part series with the ever-impressive Aileen Suzara, farmer, writer, collaborator, educator, and natural chef. Aileen has been recognized many times for her work not only in addressing some of the most pressing food issues affecting us today but also for strengthening relationships in her community in the process. She founded Sariwa - which means “fresh” in Tagalog - to gather community and celebrate Filipino cuisine through pop-ups, catering, and workshops. In the last episode, we covered her background and how she’s managed to integrate the many parts of her life into one cohesive story. We also covered some basic techniques to become a self-sufficient cook and her mindsets in both growing and cooking food.

In this episode, we delve a bit deeper into Sariwa and Aileen's dream to integrate food into the healthcare space. We also take a philosophical look into the theme of “Resistance” (resistance to healthy food, “inauthentic” food, etc.), maintaining presence and sanity, and the things that keep us from achieving our dreams. Like I said, this was one of my most enjoyable episodes to record and edit and I highly suggest you listen to the end as Aileen has some pretty sage advice that applies not just to food but to life itself.

Our guest for this two-part series is Aileen Suzara. Aileen is an eco-educator, writer, and natural chef who’s dabbled in everything from Pre-Med, to Environmental Work, to Food and founded Sariwa Kitchen (Sariwa = “fresh” in Tagalog), which gathers community and celebrates vibrant Filipino cuisine through pop-ups, catering, and workshops. Aileen’s backstory is wonderfully “random” being born in the Mojave Desert, spending time in the Big Island of Hawai’i, and now in California eating, in her words, “everything from Spam, bibimbap, poi, spaghetti, poke, Pop Tarts, to the plastic wrapped foods of the microwave generation”. This was an incredibly fun episode to work on as it encapsulates the multi-faceted nature of our food and the people who love it. Hidden Apron loves tangents!

This first part covers the twisting path Aileen took and I’d wager that for many of us for whom the question “what am I going to do after college or my life?” sent cold sweats down our spine, this is going to be an enlightening conversation on “tying the strings together”. We also talk about her 80/20 Rules on cooking - the things that make the biggest impact on preparing a meal - and the differences in mindset between growing food and making it. Give this one a listen and keep on the lookout for the next episode on the theme of Resistance.

More information can be found at hiddenapron.com/podcast, contact us at [email protected], or catch us on Instagram/Twitter @hidden_apron.

Justin Garrido is the Co-Founder and CEO of Social Products, which sources organic food products from Philippine cooperative smallholder farmer partners that empower rural farmers, women, and indigenous peoples with a more sustainable way to eradicate poverty.

Justin began his journey down the road of social entrepreneurship where his interest was piqued after volunteering at a soup kitchen while still working as a director of purchasing for Aldi, a german supermarket chain. Justin made the jump from corporate, went back to school - getting an MBA at the U. of Melbourne and going on exchange to the Asian Institute of Managment, and visited the Philippines, the land of his family, with a fresh perspective. Using his experiences in school and his early forays into the space with SocialProjects.Ph, a crowdfunding platform, Justin co-founded Social Products.

This episode covers the unique space when passion and profit blend in positive ways. We talk about Justin’s multiple transitions, the big challenges in using business to “give back”, the power of storytelling especially when selling what could be considered a “commodity product”, and other often misaligned business terms that everyone…including conscious lovers of food should know: strategy, networking, margins, etc. Oftentimes many a good idea has floundered simply because the people behind it lacked the business acumen and skills required to execute the idea. If you think that “business” is a bad word that only belongs on Wall Street, give this episode a listen. It might just be the thing that makes sure the world-shaking ideas you dream up...will survive and thrive.

Isang Smith is a Licensed Massage Therapist, multi-sport athlete and coach from running (she’s won the Silver for the 800 m. and Gold for the 1500 m. during the Philippine National Open in 2015), Muay Thai, strength training, and all around badass.  She earned a BA in Psychology from Columbia University where she also competed in their Division 1 Track & Field Team.  

Her interest in Integrative Medicine came immediately after Massage Therapy and Acupuncture resolved a troublesome calf injury during her senior year track season. Inspired to learn more about these therapeutic modalities, she attended and graduated from the Swedish Institute for Massage Therapy in 2012.  She is currently attending the Tri-State College of Acupuncture for my Masters in Oriental Medicine on her journey to help athletes of all levels recover from injuries and prevent future ones. 

Paolo's been going through training lately from weights, gymnastic strength, and dance while Ricky's made the gym his second home so we wanted to get folks from the fitness and health side of things into the show this year. This is definitely an episode where you’ll hear about how food literally fuels the body and a professional athlete’s take on it.  We talk a little bit about Isang’s work, common misconceptions about health…especially around recovery, her approach to nutrition, questions you should ask before you build your nutrition plan, and how she uses sports as a way not just to empower herself but also build communities around her.  

It’s important to note that while we focus on some tactics (many quite simple and far less overwhelming than the internet makes it seem), there are some big takeaways in what Isang has to say about the mindset and approach one takes.  Also featured on the show is Lee Scantalides, also an accomplished athlete and trainer, who managed to pop in for a question or two. 

Chef Sharwin Tee is the chef and host of Curiosity Got the Chef, The Philippines’ Lifestyle Network’s first locally-produced cooking show. The show features Sharwin traveling to international and domestic locations in order to find new ingredients, techniques and inspirations for new dishes. It’s also in its sixth season, making it the longest running Filipino cooking show on cable television broadcast all over the world.

Sharwin graduated from the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts in Vancouver, Canada and came into prominence after winning a reality cooking competition called “The Clash of the Toque-en Ones” back in 2010. Sharwin is extremely prolific and has done far more than just host a TV show. He’s taught English, cooked for celebrities and dignitaries all over the world from Abu Dhabi to Moscow, Chicago to San Francisco, owned a restaurant, and published a book.

This episode peels the curtains back on an aspect of the food industry that many of us equate with glamor and ease when it’s really a lot of work. If it came down to one thing…this episode is really about the value of curiosity and understanding “why" and how it aids in pursuing your dreams, coming up with new ideas, cultivating humility, and creating commitment.

We also talk about:
- His experiences on the road and the difficulties of being “on set”
- The responsibility of the chefs/writers/diners in the food ecosystem…especially given the rise of social media where everyone feels like they’re a critic now
- The surprising similarities between Filipino and Senegalese cuisine
- His menu creation process
- What he'd cook for President Rodrigo Duterte