I love making kimchi, but mail-order kimchi wouldn’t work—it could explode when you ship it, it gets weird and warm. So then I thought, How can I shift this into something that’s shelf-stable, that I can ship, because that seems to be what the market needs and wants right now. So I started to sell noodle kits. I want to make it easy for people to cook dishes they love at home.
Now when I go into peoples’ houses to educate an entire family on vegan eating, including, say, an 85-year-old Black woman who has been cooking the same family recipes since 1944, it’s about respectful communication and finding that point of connection. If I ask her for a favorite recipe and she says fried chicken, I say, "Let me teach you about mushrooms and how they take on a meaty flavor, and how you can batter them in aquafaba and spices.