Growing up as a Canadian-born Vietnamese Chinese American, Kat Lieu sought comfort in the flavors of her youth, like taro, matcha and black sesame. But she struggled to find a home for herself as a third-culture baker in American bakeries, online, or in cookbooks. In the auspiciously titled 108 Asian Cookies, Lieu honors the varied and rich tapestry of Asian cultures and ingredients that inspired these recipes. And along with members from Subtle Asian Baking, the online baking group she founded, are a diverse array of original and member-submitted drool-worthy recipes for cookies and bakes incorporating ingredients from the diaspora, including gochujang, ube, miso, fish sauce, sambal, tahini, matcha, and MSG stirred into each batter and dough.
108 Asian Cookies has such unique delights as:
Spicy chai cookies
Amaretti cookies with pandan and pistachios
Taiwanese snowflake crisps
Milk and cashew burfi
Salted egg yolk corn flake haystacks
Mochi brownies
Matcha and wasabi drop cookies
Original Episode Text Follows:
Stephanie Hansen:
Hi, I’m Stephanie Hansen, and you’re listening to Dishing with Stephanie’s Dish, the podcast where we talk to cookbook authors, foodie friends, and today we have Kat Liu, and she is the author of 108 Asian Cookies. And, Kat, your book stood out right away to me because it has a beautiful purple cover and it has this delicious looking crinkly green cookie on the cover. The colors are so beautiful. Oh, yeah, there you go. And you have been on Substack, really a lot like Substack Notes. And I’ve just been really interested not only in the book itself, but also in your personality and your development as a cookbook author. I believe this is your second book, correct?
Kat Lieu:
Actually, it’s my third, Stephanie.
Stephanie Hansen:
Oh, my gosh. So tell me about the first two.
Kat Lieu:
Yeah, the first two. The first one was called Modern Asian Baking at Home, and it did very, very well. It was on Publishers Weekly Bestseller for one week. The second one, not many people know about because most people know me for my baking. That one’s called Modern Asian Kitchen. So it’s like an unloved middle child, but it’s actually a great book. Beautiful photography. It just didn’t get the media attention that I feel it deserved.
But that’s the same story over and over again. And of course, now I am very proud of the third baby, which is 108 Asian cookies. It’s really on a class of its own, even compared to the first two books that I authored.
Stephanie Hansen:
Let’s talk about that. Because, and I hope I say this right, and it’s not, like, offensive, you, you seem very present about your not having had maybe the best experience in the publishing world and maybe people not seeing you as the way you wanted to be seen. And I really appreciate a lot of your posts in that regard. Like people telling you you’re too much, you’re too loud, you’re too this, you’re too that. And I find it so refreshing that you just, like, call that out and you’re like, well, if I’m too much or if I’m not going to promote myself, who is going to? Because I think people get real anxious. Writers tend to be somewhat introverted. They’re creators. It’s their gift that they’re putting out into the world.
And then, you know, it’s hard to get people to recognize or to ask for the attention. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Kat Lieu:
I always felt that I was told to be good growing up Asian American. So in your household, you shouldn’t talk back to your elders or your grandparents, you should be demure. You shouldn’t make jokes, you shouldn’t be so loud. And English is my third language. Vietnamese and Cantonese being my first two languages that I listened to and spoke in the household. So I actually grew up in elementary school being very, very shy, very shy in middle school as well. But I really just found my voice as a doctor of physical therapy once I started doing my clinical rotations as a younger adult. And there I found my voice.
Because if you don’t have a voice as a clinician, your patients and the doctors who work with you won’t listen to you. And that potentially can get your patients either saved or killed. So you have to use your voice. And I learned that as a physical.
Therapist and then into the cookbook realm.
Yes. And then as someone who had to start marketing herself as a cookbook author, then I had to be very visible online. So you have to show your face, you have to share your recipes on Instagram in your videos. And you can’t do that being quiet. So sometimes you have to do your voiceovers and then you comment back when you have the haters. And then now being someone who has to market her book because, you know, I’m not on any best cookbook lists. I’m not on a lot of holiday gift guides. I can’t land on Today show.
So then I have to use my voice and promote myself loudly because then people will see that, that, yes, we have to look at that book. There’s this author who is not visible enough because people are just not sharing their platforms with her. But because I’ve been vocal, now I’m on your podcast, now I’m on other people’s podcasts. Wall Street Journal finally recognized and put me on a holiday list. So it takes time. But if you don’t put out your own effort and if you don’t show people, you don’t show up, then no one will show up for you. No one will know about the book.
So that’s why I have to be so loud and visible.
Stephanie Hansen:
And are you still. Are you doing this full time or is this like your side hustle?
Kat Lieu:
No, I was a physical therapist for 13 years. I decided not to renew my license around 2023, I believe, or 2022. And then since 2023, I’ve been writing full time for a tasting table as a freelancer. So a full time freelancer. I also write for simply recipes, sometimes allrecipes. Parade.com started working with eater and king author baking. So I’M a huge like full time freelance food writer which is amazing. Depending on how well this book goes, book four might be in the picture, but I also want to start writing some romcoms and Romantasy novels too.
That was always a huge dream of mine. So yeah, right now being a content creator, being an influencer, activist and a food writer is my full time.
Stephanie Hansen:
Can you describe what a typical day looks like for you?
Kat Lieu:
Typical day is I’m also a mother. So wake up at 6:30 because my son has to go to school by 7:10, grab my coffee and then I’m here sitting down by 7:30 in front of my office. This is my office so most of my time is actually spent in the office. I do my six hours of writing with tasting table, do a lot of stock trading too. And then I set aside because I’m a freelancer I could set aside time for, for right now when we’re chatting on a podcast or if I have to go into a meeting, I also do some board work as a volunteer for the Very Asian Foundation. And when I’m done with all my writing or I’ll take some time off around 11:30am and go downstairs to my kitchen and start shooting content for my social media. I like to edit my content and then have it out by 3:00pm Pacific Time. And by that time is also when I stop writing as well.
3, 3:30 and sudden comes home, you know, then I have to start meal planning for dinners. I also make lunch for my mom and my husband because they’re both at home as well. Right. And then, but usually around like 5, 5:30 we’re done with dinner. 6 we’re done with dinner and then we like plan the rest of the night out. We’re just having fun with our son, you know, playing video games with him, going to a mall, just relaxing. And then I’ll just come back to the office late at night and just double check what I have to do the next day. So that’s a typical day.
But when there’s a book now that’s different. Then you’re writing the book almost like at ungodly hours. But that’s for when we have books.
Stephanie Hansen:
When you are working on a book, how long does it take you?
Kat Lieu:
It depends on what deadline they give you. Since from the time you sign your contract to when you have to hand in the final manuscript is how much time I get to work on the book. The first book I only got around nine months I think this one I got almost a year and a few months so this one, I had more time to work on it. I actually worked on it during my trip for one week in the Philippines, which was really cool. I was like working on my manuscript abroad. That was beautiful. And then you have a whole year to do your marketing. So now we’re still in the marketing phase.
So the book was out October 14th. Now it’s a month later. I’m still marketing it. So it’s kind of an endless cycle until like, okay, give it a year. Then you could finally breathe about the book and think about the next one.
Stephanie Hansen:
And you mentioned that baking is sort of what you’re known for. Do you feel like. Because I have two books that are sort of Midwest cabin themed and I’m ready to like branch out and do something different, but it’s hard once you’re sort of known for something to go into a new lane. You mentioned that you feel like the modern Asian cooking book is sort of maybe didn’t get the attention that it deserved. Do you think you’ll try to. You mentioned branching out in other genres, but in terms of cookbooks, do you think you’ll keep on the baking thread?
Kat Lieu:
I find the most joy doing the baking cookbooks because I love sweets. I feel, I feel with eating it’s very difficult because sometimes you’re not always sure what your audience likes to eat. But sweets are a little bit more universal and then you can make a lot of the sweets also vegan, gluten free, nut free. But if you’re going to make a cooking book, then your publisher will demand that there be. If it’s not a vegan book, there must be meats, right? And not everyone is eating a meat. And I don’t always feel great about cooking all kinds of meats. Brings me more joy to just write cooking book a baking books only because my. Yes, my audience jibes more with it.
And it’s very hard for me to also promote a cooking book because then you’ll have to do a lot of cooking presentations. Making a cookie and presenting online is much easier than making a bowl of pho and presenting it really nicely online because then you have the raw meats, you have the, you have all the preparation that you have to do and it just doesn’t present as nicely unless you’re a good food stylist, which is one of my weaknesses. I’m not a good food stylist.
Stephanie Hansen:
It’s interesting to hear you talk about your recipe creation in that you’re almost coming at it from a creator out versus like for me it’s the exact opposite. Like I’m thinking about, you know, this beer cheese soup sounds so delicious. Like, can I make it? Can I add wild rice? Can I, you know, make it my own in some way? It’s very common for food creators to think about the way that creation is going to look, the way it’s going to film, the way it’s going to be perceived on camera first. When you are that brain, is it harder then to translate that same into a book?
Kat Lieu:
It’s different because that would be just when I’m creating the content. So when you’re creating the content. Yes. You want to think about the final look and how you present it online. So if you’re filming pho, it gets cold fast. So how do you get it steaming hot while still not getting the steam into the camera and you yourself not burning yourself while you’re slurping noodles. So that’s a whole different animal. My process for developing recipes for my books is actually very different and actually starts at the seat where I do exactly what you said.
Like, would that taste good? So like for the full cookie in 108 Asian cookies, I was like, how do I make a cookie that will taste a little bit like pho? Right. But in a cookie form. So then you have to research all the ingredients that go typically into pho and which ones that you can add into a cookie without making it too much like a beefy cookie.
Stephanie Hansen:
Yeah, like too savory.
Kat Lieu:
Right, too savory. So that was a mistake for the first iterations of the cookie. It just had too many of the pho flavors. But now we came to a happy medium after developing, developing and testing the recipes. And now the pho cookie is actually a huge hit with readers.
Stephanie Hansen:
It’s really different and it’s very much your own and I think speaks to sort of you as a creator and as a baker. Where did you grow up?
Kat Lieu:
In Montreal, Canada. Okay, that was where I was born. But I was only there two years and then we drove down. My dad drove down to Brooklyn where there’s. That’s where I grew up. Mainly Brooklyn, New York. But I spent most of my childhood summers like instead of in camp, I went back to Montreal with my grandma and spent my time there.
Stephanie Hansen:
I love Montreal and there’s such an. My brother in law lives there in the mountains of. Where is there? I’m trying to think of the Bolton is the name of the town in the mountains there, right outside of Vermont, but in the Montreal side and the Asian markets there and restaurants and Culture of the food scene is so robust.
Kat Lieu:
Yeah. My grandma lived right by the Chinatown, so, yeah, we had dim sum for morning breakfasts. We had, like, ramen very early on when I was a kid, like Japanese ramen. And we had the first boba teas or boba. Boba teas. So, yeah, it was great.
Stephanie Hansen:
I just was in Paris and about outside of all the great bakeries and pastry shops, it seemed like there’s a real renaissance for Asian soup, too, because everywhere you passed, that would be a line out the door. It was usually either for ramen or for pho or some other type of soup.
Kat Lieu:
There’s a huge fascination with Asian flavors, culture, and, you know, the food. It’s just that there’s less of a fascination for the people, which is terrible.
Stephanie Hansen:
It’s terrible. And I. We are living in a time that is really hard to a stomach, but b. Even understand because I feel like, you know, America in general is a country of immigrants. And how we’ve come to where we are today, I’m not quite sure, and I don’t like it. But I try to just focus on, you know, what I can control in my sphere and putting light and energy into the world. And I also feel like when I read about how hard it feels for you to get seen. Do you think that’s because of some of the idea that this is a book that’s written by an Asian with Asian cookies, or is it just because it’s hard to get seen in a cookbook space in general? Because it is a crowded field?
Kat Lieu:
Because it is a crowded field. And I’ve heard from people who say, like, one, you know, when they look at the. The COVID and the title, they think it’s cheap because has 108 recipes. So they feel like maybe it’s just a cheap anthology of, like, crappy recipes, but they never just gave it a chance and flipped through the book and looked at the stories and look at the gorgeous, very unique recipes that you cannot find. And I refuse to show a lot of it on my own social media because I feel people should buy the book.
Stephanie Hansen:
Yeah.
Kat Lieu:
Learn the recipes there. So you won’t find a lot of the recipes on my blog either. Modern nationbaking.com another thing. Yes. Is of course, you know, I’m relatively new in the food world, so I came out of nowhere in 2020 and built a group called Subtle Asian Baking. I’m also not like, you know, the typical conventional Asian look that people expect from Asians who are prominent. So they’re expecting K Pop Lisa who, you know, maybe if she wrote the book, it’d be a big success or blow up. If Gordon Ramsay wrote the book, I’m sure it would have been amazing.
I mean, there’s definitely lots of cookie cookbooks out there, and I’ve seen the trajectories of them, and they definitely have more success where they’re featured on a lot of best cookbook lists, are featured on, on national TV morning shows. But something as special as this one has just been very silent crickets on the end of big food media. It’s changing a bit because again, suddenly we’re on like, you know, Wall Street Journal. That was amazing. I have no doubt in my mind that, you know, this will end up being a James Beard finalist. Whatever politics there are that doesn’t win an award, you know, that is up to them. But I do feel that anyone who goes into a bookstore, sees this book and sees other books, and they will definitely choose this one. And that was what happened in New York City.
I had one copy in the Barnes and Nobles. I was signing it, and the lady right next to me, she’s like, can I just take it? Can I grab it? I’m like, yeah, it’s the only one here, but yeah, go ahead. She’s like, it’s amazing. Like, thank you so much. She just took and she bought it. Right. So, yeah, this book is a sleeper hit. So I, I feel very happy about it.
Stephanie Hansen:
I think it’s maybe less of a sleeper than you think.
Kat Lieu:
I feel like now it is a sleeper. I still feel it is a sleeper because it didn’t get landed on, you know, the New York Times best selling list. It didn’t land on Publishers Weekly, but it’s in a category that’s quite hard. It’s not in our own cookbook category. It’s in a non fiction category. So you’re fighting against a book by called Let Them. And she’s selling like Mel Robbins. Mel Robbins.
She is selling 15,000 copies in a week.
Stephanie Hansen:
Yeah.
Kat Lieu:
Pretty hard for a cookbook to complete against. You know, when we landed on Publishers Weekly in 2022, Modern Asian Baking at Home sold over 3,000 copies and it landed on the list. We’re way over there now with one hundred and eight Asian cookies, but I couldn’t land on the list.
Stephanie Hansen:
Yeah, well, you’re on my list. You’re on my radar.
Kat Lieu:
Yeah.
Stephanie Hansen:
When you. Can we talk about like, so this is your job and you talk about like, I don’t want to give away my recipes online for free. We’re in this weird space where we’re cultivating like these beasts because we want them to ask for the recipe. Right. So that we can engage with them on our social media. But then everyone’s just like, recipe, recipe, recipe, please. And it sort of devalues in some respects the idea that you have to engage with the creator or pay them for their content. Are you doing like Substack and having paid newsletters? Have you kind of crossed into that territory yet?
Kat Lieu:
Yes, I do have one of a bestseller on Substack, so which means you have hundreds of paid subscribers, which is amazing. And I do have a lot of premium content that I put under a paywall. And I do feel that creators, authors, people who offer services online or offer amazing recipes online should be paid. Because why do I have to work for free and keep pumping out free content for you for merely a like or a thank you? That’s not enough to sustain my living. The cost of groceries is tremendous to develop a recipe. You know, we’re as a food writer for one recipe, we’re paid $300, but that only covers like some of your groceries that you have to, if you have to continue to keep testing these recipes. Like if you’re giving me $300 to test a turkey recipe when a turkey costs $100. Right, right.
And then you have your butter and then you have your utilities that you have to pay for.
It’s just not sustainable if your authors and your recipe developers are not paid fairly.
Stephanie Hansen:
I sometimes feel and wonder if we treated it like a business, if we just turn off all the free content and like, okay, maybe I’ll only have, you know, 300 people that will pay to follow, but maybe I can really devote myself to my craft and those 300 people and really giving them what they want and that. I just, I. I find sometimes it’s hard to decide do I want to keep being feeding this beast of free content or do I really want to treat this like the business I think it is and say it is. And if you want to play in our space, you have to pay for that. Right. To do so. Do you ever think about that and go back and forth?
Kat Lieu:
Not really, because I have multiple sources of income, so substack is just one of them with the premium. So yeah, I think it’s $7 a month if you’re a premium subscriber. Then I also have my blog, Modernation Baking, where all the content is technically free, but there’s ads from Media vine, so. So in that sense, I’m okay with Leaving off a free recipe because it still does lead to passive income for me.
Right. So in that case, you know, then, then I’m more comfortable. But I don’t understand how people can sustain having a blog that does not have ads. I don’t think that’s very smart. I feel like if you want to give yourself out for free like that, that’s on you. You’re probably just very, you know, well off to do so. But you, you should never just keep pumping out free content for free.
Stephanie Hansen:
I do think it’s good for the listeners to hear about why ads are on blogs because they can be annoying. I’m on the same platform that you are, mediavine, and they do a good job of managing the type of ads that get served up and also the way they’re served up on your site. So that’s been an improvement for me just to get to that status where I can be in an ad network. But it is still. Yeah, like this is work. Like, we don’t. When someone comes and is a cleaning lady, like, we don’t expect that they’re going to clean our house for free or that they’re going to come deliver our packages for free. Like, it’s really interesting, I think, how people view creators.
It just feels like the wild west of free.
Kat Lieu:
Yeah. They just feel that because they give us visibility and our big platforms that they deserve our content for free and our time for free. And then we shouldn’t complain. And it’s worse when, you know, it’s worse when you. I just don’t understand that I. When my content goes viral, there’s also a lot of hate. So there’s just a bunch of things going against us. And honestly, I am quite burned out with providing free content, especially exposing my face online.
So I do love that I can use substack and use threads to more so use my words versus my face and my voice as much.
Stephanie Hansen:
You have a lot of beautiful words. Are there other. Yeah. Are there other cookbook authors that you admire?
Kat Lieu:
I do, I do. I admire a few of them. I have both of the big compilation of Julia Child’s book cookbook.
Stephanie Hansen:
Sure.
Kat Lieu:
I have a bunch of cookbooks in the back. I don’t think you see it because of the blur. I love Desi Bakes by Hedoby. I love Breaking Bow by Clarice Lam. And I also love Clarissa Ways made in Taiwan.
Stephanie Hansen:
Okay. When you’re in Brooklyn, are there like, it’s such a great food community in Brooklyn. Like, do you network with people in your Sphere. And there’s so many great makers and people that are doing cool food things whenever I visit.
Kat Lieu:
Because now we’ve actually moved from Brooklyn to now Renton in Seattle area. I do network with people in Seattle. There’s a bunch of great Seattle foodies been trying to, you know, do content with like maybe Chef Shota and Chef Kenji Lopez, but it just feels very boys club sometimes, which is totally fine. But when we’re back in New York is when I do a lot of brand, branded works. I’ve worked with a Gina Moto, I’ve worked with Calvin Eng in Bonnie’s in Brooklyn. So I do feel that if I had stayed in Brooklyn, it would have been harder to push out because there’s just too much talent there. It was just a little bit less competition and talent in Seattle. So there’s a lot of recognition when someone from Seattle does something amazing.
Stephanie Hansen:
Yeah. Can you identify outside of the pho cookie, three recipes from your book that you feel like are not necessarily just your personal favorites but being the most well received right now?
Kat Lieu:
The, the hot chocolate miso cookie people love. I’ve seen a lot of people make that, so I, I know that one’s well received. A lot of people have been making the matcha monsters because they’re huge. They’re matcha, they’re full of like ingredients and they’re quite easy to recreate. And surprisingly a lot of people are making the lace cookies with the miso caramel that tastes just so, so amazing. So those three have been doing very well. And the final one would be like the black sesame white chocolate which a lot of people have also recreated and loved.
Stephanie Hansen:
You and when we look at like food trends, I think it was two years ago that miso and sesame were on the list. And like all these umami bombs, I mean you have so many of those components in each of these cookies. It’s gonna be like a cookie tray like nobody else’s do. Do you think people will make your cookies for holiday or.
Kat Lieu:
They have already been. Yeah, they have like all month. Ever since the book came out, October 14, people have been baking non stop from it. And I’ve seen a lot of beautiful cookie boxes already. Very creative people putting using a skyflakes biscuit box from the Philippines to lay their cookies in. It’s super fun.
Stephanie Hansen:
Are you in any cookie exchanges?
Kat Lieu:
I am not right now. I’ve been trying to get people to do one, but we did finish one off in New York City at you and me. So there was a. There were two cookie Exchanges during my book tour. And then next Saturday we’re doing this amazing, like, books and brew signing where people are trying this new amazing cream stout that I collaborated on. One of the recipes from the book is being made into a beer, so we’re gonna do that. That’s cool. Like a beer cookie exchange.
Stephanie Hansen:
Yeah, I like it. I like it. And are you doing all of your own PR and promoting your own events right now?
Kat Lieu:
Yes. I mean, there was a lot of help from the publisher, but I think they’re now more hands off because the book, the official book tour that they sponsored is over. So now the rest that I’m doing right now is on me. Ajinomoto did sponsor some money, so hopefully we’ll be able to go to either Iowa, D.C. or, let’s see, Denver.
Stephanie Hansen:
I hope you come to Minneapolis.
Kat Lieu:
Yes, I’ve been there before. I love it.
Stephanie Hansen:
Yeah, we have such a great community and we have so many people just blowing up here in terms of, you know, Diane Mua is food and wines restaurant of the year for Diane’s Place and YA Vang on the James Beard award winning list. And yeah, it’s just crazy. Sean Sherman is here with his book that really is blowing up the Midwest. Feels like it’s finally having a moment for a change, which is nice.
Kat Lieu:
I love that.
Stephanie Hansen:
Yeah. Well, I’m really impressed by you. I think the book is beautiful. I love how hard you’re working the book. I can just feel it coming out of your words when you post about stuff. And I just was like, hey, I’d like to help her get her book seen by more people because cookie books do really well in the Midwest. We have Zoe Bakes here we have Sarah Keefer, who’s cookie maven. And we have a lot of people that are very adventurous, easier eaters and really will launch themselves into Asian cooking spaces.
So I wanted to make sure that people know.
Kat Lieu:
I mean, if you need copies to give to friends, let me know.
Stephanie Hansen:
Okay.
Kat Lieu:
I love that way. Let me know. Yes, Ker. I’m going to be on a panel with her, a cookie panel next week on Cherry Bomb.
Stephanie Hansen:
Yeah, it should be great. Sarah is super great. She. You can, you can tell her that you met me. I have a TV show and she was on my TV show and we went to film and I didn’t realize this, but we were in her house and I was like, oh, this is so cool. Well, it turns out it’s like a set house. So she has. They bought the house across the street and the whole like, first level in the kitchen is sort of where she does all her baking and her work.
And then her father in law lives in the basement, which I just thought that was so clever. So I’m on the hunt someday for a set house. It’s not quite happening yet, but the.
Kat Lieu:
House next to mine was on sale and I’m like, why didn’t I get it? Now it’s double the price.
Stephanie Hansen:
Yeah, exactly.
Kat Lieu:
And now the neighbors are great. But you know, any time one of the houses are going to go on sale, maybe like, oh, I need a house.
Stephanie Hansen:
Yes, that house, just so you kind.
Kat Lieu:
Of told me, gave me this idea. Yes.
Stephanie Hansen:
Well, say hi to Sarah for us and good luck with the book tour. It’s been really fun to talk with you.
Kat Lieu:
Thank you. Stephanie, this was lovely. Thank you so much.
Stephanie Hansen:
Okay, congratulations.
