Asian Farm to Table

The celebration of Asian-American identity and history is taking shape in exciting new ways. In this episode, we meet the editors of Banana, a magazine creating a voice for contemporary AZN culture, visit an urban rice paddy in the heart of New York City, and talk to the creator of the hot Chinese cooking blog, Omnivores Cookbook. We also spend time looking at the future of Asian cocktail culture and how traditional Asian brews like sake and shochu are growing in popularity stateside.

Comfort food is nostalgic, hearty, soothing, and has never been more indispensable. Whether it's Chinese food made at home with an assist from cooking blogs like The Woks of Life or Taiwanese and Indonesian classics reimagined by young chefs like Eric Sze (886), Trigg Brown (Win Son), or Cedric Vongerichten (Wayan), fresh takes on familiar flavors are finding a new generation of hungry fans.

A fourth-generation Japanese-American farm (Chino Farms). America's oldest tofu shop in the hands of a surprising new owner (Ota Tofu). A mother-son relationship built on a passion for food and a love of heritage (Liv Wu and Erling Wu-Bower) . A historic Hollywood cafe that is part culinary hotspot, part Asians-in-Hollywood history exhibit. A former commander in the South Vietnamese army and CIA collaborator who now owns a James Beard award-winning restaurant (William Vuong).

The relationship between faith and food is evident at three Asian houses of worship: an imposing Buddhist temple where Danielle is served an artful vegetarian feast; a Sikh temple where she helps cook Indian flatbread for a communal meal where all are welcome; and a Queens mosque's annual food fair, where she samples Indonesian dishes and learns about life as a Muslim in America.

It isn't just recipes that get imported and exported between the East and West, but also food practices. The farm to table movement is not at all uniquely American. We travel around China's Hangzhou region with Dai Jianjun of Dragon's Well Manor and to Sang Lee Farms in New York's North Fork to see how widespread this movement to keep things local really is.

There is an ancient Ayurvedic proverb that says, "When diet is wrong, medicine is of no use. When diet is correct, medicine is of no need". We explore the idea of functional food and tell stories of individuals who are looking to heal the body, spirit, and global community one meal at a time. Accomplished multi-hyphenate Waris Aluwahlia, celebrated chef Su-Mei Yu along with Nimai Gupta, a farmer who is dedicated to practicing Ayurvedic agriculture show us that consciousness and intent are two of the most powerful ingredients in life.

The rise of China has meant the rise of Chinese culinary traditions in America. Danielle checks out an industrial kitchen where traditional "confinement meals" are made for new mothers across the country; an underground Manhattan cocktail den whose main ingredient is the fiery liquor baijiu, the world's most heavily consumed spirit; and a wedding in the heart of San Francisco's Chinatown where old world and new meet at the banquet table and on the dance floor.

As bone broth and kombucha line the shelves of your local grocery store, we take a closer look at "food as medicine." From visits to the Traditional Chinese Medicine Centre in China, Manhattan Chinatown's Po Wing Market and Seoul's Kimchi Museum, we learn that food is so much more than just sustenance.

Culinary creativity isn't always found in the kitchen. In today's day and age, innovation on how and what we eat and drink often happens in unexpected places-like the think tanks of Silicon Valley, suburban garages, and next-gen Chinese fast casual spots.

A new generation of chefs and entrepreneurs is finally bringing the amazing cooking of the world's second-largest country to a broad American audience. Danielle interviews a former financier who offers a light, healthy take on Indian classics at his fast-casual start-up Inday; the adventurous restaurateurs behind Babu Ji, where meticulous preparations and a Bollywood vibe have led to breakout success; and a Silicon Valley engineer who got her start in the food business selling homemade chai by bicycle in the hills of San Francisco.

The next generation of Asian Americans are redefining what it means to be Asian in the U.S. by keeping one foot in the past, and the other in the future. We talk to renegade chefs, entrepreneurs and cultural ambassadors from Canal Street Market to the dance party sensation Bubble T to see what's in store for the future of Asians in the mainstream.