Read My Latest Work on Storyloom - Cozy Sci-Fi and Spy Parodies

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, when I am not shooting food or testing recipes, I’ve been writing interactive fiction on StoryLoom. I have been really loving this job. I suffer pretty bad imposter syndrome when it comes to my food photography; maybe because I shoot everything on my iPhone, or maybe because so much of whether I’m happy with my photos depends on things outside of my control like lighting and the weather. But I actually feel quite confident in my fiction writing skills! Which is why I hope you will check out my work.

On Storyloom, I write stories where you—the reader—get cast as the main character and you can choose your own adventure. It’s not quite like reading a novel because you’ll be prompted to make choices along the way that can impact how the story turns out. There’s also fun background and character art—so it’s part game, part graphic novel. It’s also great for people who appreciate the written word but don’t have the attention span for long form fiction (like me).

Important Note: If you are viewing this on your phone from a link I shared on Instagram, please note that links to StoryLoom are not accessible through the Instagram browser. You will need to copy+paste the links below into a browser on your computer. Or complete this form so I can send you all this info by email.

Here’s the quick info on how to get to my stories:

  1. Visit the StoryLoom website using a browser (Google Chrome strongly recommended) on your COMPUTER. (The team is working hard on a mobile-friendly version but right now the mobile experience is very buggy.)

  2. Sign up with your Google account. They are currently in open beta so it is free to sign up, and you’ll get access to play and read interactive stories from a variety of genres! (Note that open beta also means there might be some bugginess from time to time.)

  3. Visit one of the links to my stories below. OR click on “All Stories” and do a Ctrl+F or ⌘+F to search for the title.

  4. Enjoy reading and playing through the story for FREE!

My latest stories on StoryLoom:

The Light Between Skies

Genre: Cozy Sci-Fi

Link: https://storyloom.com/stories/lilybubbletea-the-light-between-skies?id=b2c3b952-4eef-d45c-4fd1-211835af1628

A story about the cutest and fuzziest little alien. This one is loaded with a bunch of pretty art I created on MidJourney and I was inspired by Studio Ghibli and Cowboy Bebop to tell a story of friendship and adventure. (This work is in progress, so I’ll be releasing more chapters next month!)

Tomorrow Never Spies

Genre: Spy Parody

Link: https://storyloom.com/stories/lilybubbletea-tomorrow-never-spies?id=fcc2f278-3f95-cba7-7f69-373e799b52ef

I tell people this is like the spy genre’s version of Star Trek: Lower Decks. You’ll play as an introverted data analyst who has to team up with a dashing intelligence agent to save the world! A silly comedy set in a fictional—but familiar—world of VR headsets, awkward tech billionaires, and contagious viruses.

There’s Been a Murder!

Genre: Murder Mystery Anthology

Link: https://storyloom.com/stories/lilybubbletea-theres-been-a-murder?id=94c32655-8b73-4c15-c8aa-5a1147ad462f

Each chapter is a new mystery where you’ll look for clues and interview witnesses to solve the crime!

Previous works:

Last year, I also wrote a cozy mystery called Tea with Scream and Sugar—a story about an Asian-American food writer from a small town that * coincidentally * really resembles me. You can read more about that piece here.

Having trouble with StoryLoom?

Accessing StoryLoom can be tricky if you found this blog post through the Instagram app. Shoot me a DM on Instagram or complete this form so I can reach you by email if you are interested in reading my work but are having trouble accessing the StoryLoom site.

Thanks for reading!!!

Read My Interactive Cozy Mystery - Tea with Scream and Sugar on Storyloom

I haven’t been creating as much content for my Instagram lately, and it’s because I have been working on another exciting project instead!

If you love reading cozy mysteries, stories that involve many descriptions of food, or stories starring Asian-American women, I would love for you to check out the interactive story that I am writing on StoryLoom called Tea with Scream and Sugar.

Here’s the quick info on how to get to it:

  1. Visit the StoryLoom website

  2. Sign up with your Google account. They are currently in open beta so it is free to sign up, and you’ll get access to play and read interactive stories from a variety of genres!

  3. Click on this link to go directly to my story, Tea with Scream and Sugar. OR click on “All Stories” and do a Ctrl+F or ⌘+F to search for the title, Tea with Scream and Sugar

  4. Enjoy reading and playing through the story for FREE!

(Update for if you’re arriving to this blog post via Instagram: Sometimes Google does not like it if you are trying to view these links while still in the Instagram app. If you run into trouble logging in, please copy/paste this link into a browser app like Google Chrome instead: https://storyloom.com/stories/8ec26a08-cfd0-89a8-af3f-6d35141c1804 )

A little more about the platform:

StoryLoom is a platform for reading, creating, and sharing interactive fiction. Unlike reading a regular ol’ analogue novel, with interactive stories, you the reader can play as the main character, and you’ll be faced with choices along the way that will impact how the story unfolds. Do you remember the Choose Your Own Adventure book series? It’s a lot like that, but something you can play on your computer or phone.

StoryLoom is currently in open beta, so it is free to sign up (all you need to do is log in with your Google account) and free to play other creators’ stories (like mine!) or even create and publish your own. If you’ve been wanting to write your own fiction and have been seeking a place to share it with the world, this is an awesome platform to do so. (Plus, the people working on it are seriously super lovely!)

What is Tea with Scream and Sugar?:

The story I am working on is a cozy murder mystery starring an Asian-American woman named Iris (yes, a flower name), set in a small fictional town in the California’s Central Valley (which is, not coincidentally, where I grew up). As of the time of this blog post, there are 7 chapters available for you to play and I anticipate there will be 12 total chapters to complete the story. My goal is to finish it by the end of the year!

If you are unfamiliar with the cozy mystery genre, think of something like Murder, She Wrote or Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple character. It’s the opposite crime genre to a gritty hardboiled detective noir story. The main character is typically a woman who is smart and observant but not a professional detective. The setting is usually a small, quaint town where lots of people know each other. And often the main character’s identity revolves around some kind of cozy activity or interest, like writing, cooking, scrapbooking.

Here is the synopsis for Tea with Scream and Sugar:

Food writer Iris Hu returns to sleepy Appledale for the big opening weekend of her friend's quirky fusion cafe. She's looking forward to tasty treats and cozy cups of tea but she never expected a sinister mystery to be on the menu. When several cafe patrons end up ill—and in one case, dead!—it's up to Iris to save her friend, and herself, from the town's darkest skeletons.

True to my own form, you can expect lots of descriptions of yummy food, and I think the best compliments I have received so far on it are that reading my story has made people hungry!

But beyond that, I’ve really taken the saying “write what you know” to heart while working on this story, so there’s a chance you’ll get to know me more by reading it. Like myself in real life, the protagonist is a daughter of Chinese immigrants, who grew up among a predominantly conservative white population; the growth into someone who is prideful for their heritage after overcoming a childhood of struggling to fit in is very much a part of the story. It’s a topic I have covered a lot in the past through what I’ve shared on Instagram, and I am hoping the way I have depicted it in Tea with Scream and Sugar is genuine and relatable for other people who grew up in situations like mine. Furthermore, the story explores challenges that Asian immigrants face in the restaurant industry, how marginalized groups are treated in seemingly quaint Americana-vibey towns, and how (spoiler alert!) closed-mindedness is a villain that can live inside seemingly regular people.

If you’ve read this far, I am so grateful for your interest and support in my work, and I really hope you like the story! Here’s the info once again for how you can go play through it:

  1. Visit the StoryLoom website

  2. Sign up with your Google account. They are currently in open beta so it is free to sign up, and you’ll get access to play and read interactive stories from a variety of genres!

  3. Click on this link to go directly to my story, Tea with Scream and Sugar. OR click on “All Stories” and do a Ctrl+F or ⌘+F to search for the title, Tea with Scream and Sugar

  4. Enjoy reading and playing through the story for FREE!

A Festive Champagne Brunch Done My Way

As the weather is finally starting to cool over here in San Francisco and we’ve finally started to get some much-needed rain, it finally feels right for me to shift my creative brain towards thinking about the festive season. It’s at this time of year that my mind is pulled to two extremes—I either want to be cozied up at home, warming my house with the smell of things baking in the oven and simmering on the stove, or traveling off to snowy places with charming town squares illuminated with holiday lights. Now that I’ve started busting out the fall-scented candles, I’m daydreaming about styling big platters of food and finding excuses to invite friends over for bubbly (but also about the prospect of actually getting to travel to someplace festive for the holidays this year). I am not big on family gatherings, but I do love so much the opportunity to celebrate small things with the people who are dear to me, and while that’s something we should do all year round, there is something about crisp cool air and gloomy skies that makes me crave that togetherness in my home.

For this blog post, I got to partner with Champagne Taittinger; founded in 1734, they are one of the last remaining family-owned and operated champagne houses. I am sharing an idea for a festive brunch idea to pair with Taittinger’s Les Folies de la Marquetterie, a wine that was created to be a tribute to autumn and those feelings of being at home. It mirrors a fall palette in its golden color and has delicate bubbles that remind me of the twinkling lights of the European Christmas markets in my daydreams. To me, it tastes very bright at first and then has a finish that is kind of oaky; in the tasting notes, it says it is “full-bodied and fruity on the palate with golden peach flavors leading to a finish with light woody notes”. It is a full flavored and complex champagne, so they recommend that it be paired with something robust like roasted meats.

I paired Taittinger’s Les Folies de la Marquetterie with Cantonese roast duck from a local restaurant and homemade waffles with scallions and lap cheong (sweet Chinese sausage) in the batter. The combination of duck and waffles was inspired by a brunch restaurant in London that I visited during Christmastime in 2019, so when I think of a festive brunch, I think of this combination! I thought it would be fun to style them together on this big vintage platter that I recently found on one of my antiquing hunts and I filled it out with slices of cara cara oranges, fresh jujubes, and lots of fresh herbs.

When you think of champagne pairings, you probably do not think of Cantonese roast meats. However, I recently came across this article on Food52 about why champagne goes with Chinese takeout. The article goes into how the two are perfect for one another because the bubbles of champagne allow you to better savor foods that are greasy by cleansing the tongue with every sip and its acidity provides balance when you are eating foods that are savory-sweet. So, although a Cantonese roast duck was probably not top of mind when roasts were noted as the recommended food pairing for Les Folies de la Marquetterie, I saw an opportunity to present a food from my childhood and my culture in a different light. And what I learned from that article was totally true! The succulent duck tasted sooo delicious with the champagne; taking a sip of it in between bites made each bite feel as if I was tasting the yummiest duck for the first time. 

I think most Westerners do not see Cantonese roast duck as a delicacy because of its typical presentation—I am talking about the ones you see hanging in the windows of bakeries in Chinatown or in the hot deli of Asian supermarkets—but for me, it is very much a special occasion food. If you go to one of these at Chinese New Year, they will be absolutely packed with uncles and aunties trying to order their siu ngap (roast duck) and siu yuk (roasted pork belly with crackling skin). Getting a roast duck was always a special treat when I was young, and I loved everything about it from savoring the fattiest parts of the skin that the rest of my family didn’t want to the soup my parents would make by simmering the bones with pickled mustard greens afterwards. Now that I am grown and living in an area with so many local shops that sell them, I can get a roast duck whenever I want and I can make whatever sides I want—even waffles!—but it will always feel like a special occasion when I bring one home.

I was thrilled that Taittinger was willing to give me the opportunity to share this idea of pairing Chinese roast duck with their beautiful champagne. As you may know if you’ve read the captions of many of my Chinese food posts on my Instagram, I have been actively trying to present the foods of my culture in a way that showcases its complexity and deliciousness, as well as its worth. For too many too often, Chinese food is only known as cheap and ugly, despite its rich history and the sheer volume of possibilities it brings to the palate with all of its regional nuances. I am always so grateful to work with a brand that supports my efforts to rewrite the narrative of Chinese food in America and it means so much to me that Taittinger allowed me to showcase their special festive offering alongside a nostalgic dish. I am so proud to work with a brand that has such a rich heritage and prestige of its own, yet is still so open to diverse ideas. 

Truth be told, I am not an expert when it comes to sparkling wines and their pairings, but duck is prominent in French cuisine just as it is in Chinese cuisine, and both cultures have iconic ways of preparing it that are absolutely delicious. So to me, sharing the duck dish that I grew up with as a pairing with this lovely champagne made lots of sense. No one would question pairing champagne with duck confit or duck à l'orange so this meal is my Chinese-American spin on that. If you are like me and colder days put you in the mood for celebrating things big or small, I hope you will consider making one of Taittinger’s champagnes a part of your celebration, and I hope that this post inspires you to think outside of the typical pairings to bring along a dish that is special to you.

Thank you so much to Champagne Taittinger for sponsoring this post!

Palm Springs to Ojai Road Trip

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I got to get away from chilly San Francisco for a bit, on a little road trip through SoCal to celebrate mine and Spouse’s 11th wedding anniversary. It never ceases to amaze me how diverse the terrain and climates are within my home state, and on this trip I got to see some of the desert regions for the first time. We started off in Palm Desert for a friend’s birthday party and made our way back up north from there, stopping at Joshua Tree, LA, and Ojai along the way. Here’s a little photo dump and some highlights from the trip.

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The town of Joshua Tree was this weird mix of big commercial business like a massive Walmart and then some quirky new age crystals stores. We stayed inside most of the time because it was so freakin hot! We only got to visit the Joshua Tree National Park at sunset and in the morning, because it was just so obnoxiously hot in the middle of the day. I would love to go back at a cooler time of the year to see more; there were so many interesting looking cacti and rock formations that I wish I had a chance to spend more time with without sweating out my entire body’s water content.

We stayed in the most perfectly decorated AirBnB in Joshua Tree that I did not take any good photos of but here is their Instagram. It was a millennial pink dream. We joked that it was haunted because a high pitched sound would emit from the hallway toilet at random times and the shower would start dripping in the middle of the night even though we never used it. Having a house ghost to keep us company in the middle of the desert somehow felt fitting.

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Having a couple of days in LA felt really nice after a wild weekend in Palm Desert with our friends and melting away in the barren landscape of Joshua Tree. Oolong was especially relieved to be in LA where there were lots of grass patches and interesting flowering shrubs, after totally hating her time in the desert (hot sand, no grass, and the plants were all out to stab her). We stayed in Silver Lake, which is my favorite neighborhood in LA. The Silverlake Pool & Inn was so aesthetic and such a great location for nearby cafes and restaurants; Spouse spotted Steven Yeun at the Erewhon Market next door!

As usual, our time in LA revolved around food, including ordering Howlin’ Ray’s for delivery through Postmates and finally getting to eat a Bestia after years of trying to get a reservation there. Our meal at Bestia was INCREDIBLE and exceeded expectations. For a shared main, we ordered a slow roasted lamb neck with creme fraiche and baby gem lettuce. It arrived as a whole big meaty, simply-seasoned hunk of neck at our table, which we were instructed to eat by making mini lettuce wraps (like ssam!). I just thought this was such a unique presentation that really allowed the natural flavors of the ingredients to shine.

If you are looking for a place to get boba in Silver Lake, I think that the teas at Pine & Crane are super underrated. A strong tea flavor and not too sweet!

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Ojai was so charming and everything I imagined it would be. A cute little town with lots of thrift stores, boutiques, and restaurants with beautiful patios; we spent an afternoon just walking around the main strip, popping into shops, and then getting some takeout to eat back in our Airstream. We stayed at Caravan Outpost, which is a collection of perfectly decorated Airstreams on lush grounds that feel like a desert oasis. I recommend staying here but I wish they provided some pots/pans and dishes to make use of the kitchens inside the caravans; I had packed dishes but not cookware so we had to look for a pan at a thrift store.

Do you have questions about Joshua Tree, Silver Lake in LA, or Ojai? Leave them in the comments below!

Regrets About My Kitchen Renovation

I mentioned in my Instagram stories the other day that there were a couple of things I regret about my kitchen renovation 8 years ago. A few people asked for me to share my reflections on the experience, so they don’t make the same mistakes. It’s all super minor things, but I’ve collected my thoughts here in case it is helpful for anyone considering a kitchen remodel.

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We bought our house back in 2012. When we had started looking at homes the year prior, real estate was pretty reasonably priced in the Bay Area compared to how things are nowadays. Prices started to rise during that year of house hunting, so by the time we managed to nail something down, it was nowhere near perfect and we didn’t have much budget left for renovations. The one thing we knew we HAD to change was the kitchen, which we hated. The footprint of the kitchen was so tiny that there was basically nowhere to stand in it when the oven was open; it certainly couldn’t have fit more than one person actively cooking at once. (“If we didn’t renovate that kitchen, we’d be divorced by now,” we still joke.) We ended up hiring a contractor to knock down the wall that divided the kitchen and dining room, and gut the entire thing.

Things I regret:

  • Not getting electrical outlets installed in the kitchen island. The extra electrical work would have required our contractor to apply for more permits with the city, so we passed on this idea and had our small kitchen island placed on caster wheels instead. Since I use the island as my main work surface for all my prep, it would have been nice to also be able to use small appliances on it.

  • Choosing an overmount sink verses mounting it under the countertop. We opted for a drop-in sink (like this) that has a thin metal lip extending over the countertop to hold it in place. Crumbs sure have a way of getting wedged under this lip when we are trying to wipe down the countertops; very annoying!

  • Not getting an ice maker installed in our freezer. Would have been convenient for all those iced home cafe drinks I made this past year!

  • Inspecting things more carefully each day while the work was in progress. For the most part, we really liked our contractor. He was friendly, communicated well, and made some great suggestions along the way. But there are little missed details (weirdly aligned cabinet legs, crooked light fixture) that we didn’t notice until after the project was over.

Here are some before, during, and after photos, in case you’re curious!

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Road Trip Through the Pacific Northwest

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I did a Q&A on Instagram about my experience as a first time RVer, so I also thought I’d capture some of my favorite photos here and share some takeaways, too.

I am really about the least outdoorsy person you will ever meet. I love traveling to cities across the world, enjoying their local foods, admiring unique architecture, and getting caught up in the hustle and bustle of life in a place full of people. I don’t like to hike or really do any walking unless it involves exploring a unique street market or moving towards a delicious restaurant meal. But with COVID-19 locking us all down in our homes, I started to think about how I could safely enjoy a new change of scenery and a new experience, and a home on wheels seemed an intriguing solution. Unlike my city adventures across the globe, this could be a way to explore and appreciate some of those National Parks that my own country seemed to be so famous for—something I may never have done as a U.S. citizen were it not for the unique circumstances of a global pandemic.

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So, my spouse and I rented the smallest RV we could find with a complete kitchen and bathroom that allowed us to bring our dog, Oolong. We wanted to be as self-contained as possible out of consideration for health guidelines. We ended up going with El Monte RV, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommended it because the RV presented minor inconvenient flaws throughout the trip (leaky sink, side mirror wouldn’t stay in place, reverse camera stopped working, stove stopped igniting without a lighter). But it did feel clean and spacious. Here is a very detailed video on the RV I rented, which we found on YouTube from a WA-based company; we were grateful to have found it because our own RV walkthrough from the company we used did not provide nearly enough of the necessary information as this video did.

Here are some quick notes based on the questions I received:

  • It cost $4000 for us to rent for 13 nights. We also spent about $900 in gas.

  • Dumping the waste tanks was okay once we (by “we” I mean my spouse) knew what we were doing. “Gray waste” from the sinks and shower and “black waste” from the toilet are both stored in tanks outside of the RV cabin, and we didn’t experience any foul odors getting in. The process is to connect the provided hose to the pipe on the outside of the vehicle and to insert the other end into the hole at the dump site, then release the black waste first followed by the gray. The gray waste helps flush out the hose to prevent the process from being smelly.

  • We parked in a combination of free rest stops and “sno-parks”, national park campsites, other foresty camp parks, and random pullouts along the side of the road (so long as there were no signs prohibiting overnight parking and other RVs/campers were also parking there). We avoided “RV parks” that were just parking lots without separation between the spots.

  • I would not recommend trying to drive the RV around for lots of different activities in a city with small streets and tight turns. When we were in Seattle, we parked the RV near a large park and walked downtown to avoid driving on streets that were not conducive to a large vehicle.

  • Having a dog with is did not hinder us at all on our trip. However, we did choose to travel through the PNW because of the weather, knowing it would be safe to occasionally leave Oolong in the RV without it being to hot if we wanted to do a non-dog-friendly activity. We thought Oolong would have the best time of her life on this trip, because she loves going to the beach or sniffing trees, but we could tell on the road she had mixed feelings. She was anxious about the drive and bothered by the loud noises of everything rattling through bumps and turns, and she got carsick from a particularly windy road. However, we think she particularly enjoyed the Oregon Dunes, the Hoh River, and in general getting to sniff lots of different trees and bushes.

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Highlights for me included:

  • Digging for clams in the Puget Sound area and foraging for blackberries in Northern California

  • Take-out Thai chicken rice from Nong’s Khao Man Gai in Portland

  • Cooking over a campfire

  • Having lunch while overlooking Crater Lake

  • Picking up some amazing smoked salmon from Jack’s Fish Spot at Pike Place Market

  • Waking up in a new place every day that was quiet and smelled of either the forest or the sea

I realize that many of my highlights involve food. Hmm…

Here is a map of some stops that felt notable to me:

Toasts From My Childhood

For National Toast Day, I want to talk about some toasts from my childhood. But first, here’s my reimagining of those childhood flavors as an adult.

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As a kid, these probably would have all been on pre-sliced white bread. I don’t think my mom would have even gone for the Wonder Bread name brand; we probably got the generic supermarket brand white bread. But for this dressed-up adult version, and because I worked damn hard in life and now I can, I went for one of the most luxurious (but still square-shaped) breads available at my local vegetarian grocery co-op: the Josey Baker Bread Adventure Bread. Here’s what you’re looking at (clockwise from top-left):

Whipped buttercream and brown sugar. Inspired by my memories of having toast slathered with margarine (from the plastic tub) and a scoop of sugar sprinkled over. I don’t know why my mom thought this was a legitimate thing to serve a child, but in fairness I never had any energy and was scared of playing outside, so sugar intake was not an issue.

Creamy peanut butter and apricot preserves. Because yes, even as an Asian kid, I had peanut butter and jam. I never liked grape jelly.

Condensed milk. I think everyone knows about condensed milk toast now. I made my own condensed milk for this because I didn’t want to open up a whole can just to smear a little bit on a tiny piece of bread for a photo. (So I made a whole jar of it by laboriously stirring for 45 minutes over the stove instead? Adult Lily logic.)

Pandan kaya jam. Yes, I’ve been having this ever since I was a child even though you may have just learned about it from seeing someone post about it on Instagram. This is really what I wanted to talk about.

Kaya toast is having a moment right now here in San Francisco. Thanks to the popularity of Bread Belly’s version, with a bright green pandan kaya piped diagonally across the surface of the bread, kaya toast is showing up on my Instagram feed more often that the ubiquitous avocado toast these days. I haven’t made my way across town to try it just yet, but they seem to be a great little local business and I am happy for their success over presenting Asian-inspired flavors in high-quality baked goods. Seeing kaya toast blow up this way is a little weird for me, though. You see, Bread Belly did not invent kaya toast, nor do they make any claims that they did, and I have been eating kaya toast since I was a little kid. It’s a flavor I associate with visiting my family in Malaysia, when—even though I wasn’t considered a picky eater as a kid—my aunties were kind enough to give me toast and cereal for breakfast because they knew I wasn’t used to having curry or nasi lemak in the mornings. I associate it with avoiding eye contact with tiny lizards on the walls and the rotting-fruit smell of ripe durian caught in the humid air as I made my way down the stairs in their homes. I do not associate it with eating for the ‘Gram.

This must be what it was like for Japanese people when all of a sudden everyone started losing their shit over ramen that didn’t come out of a styrofoam cup or for Danish folks when everyone suddenly realized that putting stuff on bread looks more aesthetic when served open-faced. I’m excited that a food so Malaysian/Singaporean in origin is rising in popularity but part of me feels strangely worried that almost none of the people flocking to it know where it came from. Do they know that you can get a jar of kaya (a jam made of coconut milk, sugar, and eggs—pandan optional) from the Southeast Asian section of the Asian supermarket for less than $4? Because that’s the kaya I’m familiar with: not the nice, handcrafted, vibrant looking stuff that makes toast pretty, but rather the fresh-from-the-jar gooey stuff, as everyday as the processed peanut butter I used in this photo. Should I care about whether or not people know this?

I never bought it before in the States because I wanted to preserve that specialness that I associated between visiting Malaysia and the flavor of kaya but now I’ve gone and purchased it for $3.19 at Pacific Supermarket right here in San Francisco for purposes of this photo and the story I wanted to tell with it. I wanted to do my part to share with people where kaya came from and try to describe how weird it is to suddenly see everyone getting excited about it. I’ve always loved it and it’s always been exciting to me. I’m glad you like it, too.