Exploring Memory and Identity in the Kitchen

In honor of Asian/Pacific Islander Heritage Month in the United States, we’re celebrating the diversity of cultures and histories within the Asian/Pacific Islander community (inclusive of non-Americans). As part of this month, we’ll be featuring customers who identify as part of this community and exploring the theme “Stories of Sustenance” as a way of interpreting how cultural bonds are shared and become strengthened from one generation to the next, particularly in a time of crisis. 

Frankie Gaw is founder and creator of Little Fat Boy, a blog he created to pay homage to his Taiwanese and American heritage through recipes inspired by his grandmothers—elegantly presented alongside beautiful photos and videos of the preparation and finished dishes. Gaw spoke with Squarespace about how his food-fueled blog has become not only a way to share dishes, but also, a piece of himself. 

SQUARESPACE: Your grandma, Young Popo, is a pretty prominent character on Little Fat Boy. What role do food and cooking play in your family life?

FRANKIE GAW: Food and cooking have played so many roles throughout my family from childhood until now. I grew up in Ohio, and like many Asian Americans, I reconciled two contrasting cultures as I tried to carve out my identity throughout my life. My grandma lived with us when I was a kid in the Midwest. Looking back, whether it was a marathon dumpling-making session on our small kitchen island or a fresh seafood hotpot over a Christmas break, I feel really lucky over time having collected all these food memories and traditions that have played a significant role for me to understand how special my heritage is as an adult.  

SQSP: What are some favorite dishes you grew up eating?

FG: My Top 3:

Steamed pork buns (豬肉包子) - This is my absolute favorite food of all time, it’s the reason why I love cooking so much and ties back to so many memories for me in my grandma’s kitchen. This classic bun is filled with juicy pork, salted Napa cabbage, and mixed with scallions and ginger.

Scallion pancake with an egg and basil (蔥油餅加蛋) - One of my dad’s favorite dishes he would make. A flaky crispy layered flatbread with scallions in between, add a layer of scrambled egg on top with some basil and you’ve got the perfect savory breakfast.

Stir Fried Tomato Egg (番茄炒蛋) - One of the most simple yet delicious dishes that so many first generation Chinese and Taiwanese immigrant kids grew up with. Tomatoes are quickly stir fried with scrambled egg that’s seasoned with ginger, rice wine, sesame oil and served over white rice. It’s a humble dish that packs so much comfort in a bowl, I still have spontaneous cravings for this dish when I need a reminder of home.

SQSP: What was your inspiration for starting Little Fat Boy? What do you hope people gain from the content you’re creating?

FG: I started the blog at a time when as a mid-20-something-year-old, I was learning to finally embrace all the unique qualities that made me who I was rather than suppress them like I did when I was young. After I came out as gay in my early 20s, I started noticing other parts of my identity I hadn’t fully embraced, like my Taiwanese American heritage. I started flying to my Grandma’s house and listening to her stories while documenting the process of how to make my two favorite dishes she’d always made me: dumplings and steamed buns. When I would get home to San Francisco at the time, I would rewatch the videos and practice recreating the dish over time, eventually creating my own versions. After realizing I could make these nostalgic dishes at home, food was coming out of left and right in my little San Francisco kitchen. These dishes turned into a blog, where the recipes and photos have become a sort of love letter to my family and my two grandmas who taught me how to cook. Through this process I’ve gained a sense of pride of how beautiful my Taiwanese American culture can be, and I hope it inspires others to celebrate their own unique identities and individuality as well.

SQSP: How does your day job as a product designer influence your blog and cooking?

FG: A ton! It’s forced me to set pretty clear constraints so I could manage both and stay relatively sane. The top-down, single dish on a colored background style of my photos, for example, was an intentional choice from the beginning so I didn’t have to think too much about styling for each dish while still maintaining a unique visual brand. My setup is also quite minimal to increase time efficiency. I use my bedroom as my photo studio where my light source is one window at 4–7 PM at the end of the workday. Even though I’m scrambling half the time and my kitchen becomes a tornado while I’m cooking to get photos shot on time, I love that my 9–5 job has created constraints that influence the content to be more creative in the end.

SQSP: What role does your online presence play in finding and creating community?

FG: My hope is that my online presence is a direct connection to people who don’t normally see themselves in food media typically represented. I know as a kid if I saw someone who looked like me trying to show off their homemade food presented in a way that celebrated both their Taiwanese American and queer pride in the most vibrant, colorful way and got interviewed for it, like that would’ve totally blown my mind and made me think a little differently about my place in the world. So for me, I’m still a work in progress, but I’m definitely trying to pay tribute to all these different parts of my identity in a visible way so that people who may feel different would hopefully see themselves too and know that their stories have value and are worth celebrating, too. 

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