Can you believe that Steamy Kitchen is almost 2 decades old?
I think back and am amazed by what we’ve accomplished. I wouldn’t be where I am without the help of my wonderful team and, of course, YOU! This community has been the backbone of this endeavor, and I’m so grateful for you everyday.
To celebrate Steamy’s 19th year, I thought I’d give you a little background info on our journey. Here are…
10 Things To Know About Steamy Kitchen
1. The path to creating Steamy Kitchen was prompted by a moment of frustration.
In 2005, while sitting in a restaurant called Bangkok Tokyo, I overheard a woman on the phone say, “I’m having sushi at the Chinese restaurant.” My spine stiffened. I glanced at the signage. Neither Bangkok nor Tokyo was in China.
I sat with the feeling, and after a few deep breaths, I realized being upset didn’t fix anything. If I wanted things to change, I had to change them myself. If I wanted people understand ethnic cooking, I had to teach them.
Though I had no cooking experience outside of my home kitchen, I walked into a local culinary school and asked if I could teach there. My “resume” was a platter of Mom’s recipes: wok fried rice and crispy egg rolls. I was hired on the spot.
2. Steamy Kitchen began as a personal way to store my mom’s recipes.
Immediately following my new job, I raced home and called my mom to ask her for more of her family recipes, and she began dictating them to me over the phone. Eventually, I decided to start a blog to store them all in a blog, starting with easy Asian recipes.
3. The name Steamy Kitchen is an homage to my mom.
My mom, the bun-master!
Though my mother only knew Chinese when we first emigrated from Hong Kong, our neighbors taught her recipes like baked apple pie and slow-cooked pot roast. In return, she taught them how to make wok fried rice and crispy egg rolls, and it was through these interactions that she began to learn English.
After just a few years in the midwest, I eventually lost my native Cantonese tongue, but my mom and I never stopped communicating through food. Food quickly became our life-long love language.
Even to this day, she always has a steamy pot of homemade Chinese soup simmering on the stove.
4. I knew Steamy Kitchen was going to be a business from the beginning.
As soon as I started my blog, I knew I was going to build a business from it. At the time, nobody even knew what a blog was, but I was excited by the premise of breaking into a brand new industry because it meant I could create anything that I wanted to.
There were 2 major strategies that I employed:
The first was to be multi-talented. With no formal training, I taught myself the art of recipe-writing and food photography (including food styling, editing photos, and editing video), as well as how to master web development and online marketing. I knew that the more talent that I had, the more valuable I’d become, and within six months, I attracted the attention of a cookbook publisher and scored a sweet book deal—the recipes and photography fully created by me.
The second strategy was to be multi-platform. These days, it’s par for the course to utilize TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook for online marketing, but 19 years ago, these platforms didn’t exist. Multi-platform meant being equipped and experienced with live television, in-person events, radio and public speaking. I knew that if I got good at presenting on television, I could stand out and reel in more opportunities.
5. Steamy Kitchen got its first exposure deal in print.
Early on in Steamy Kitchen’s journey, I reached out to the Tampa Tribune newspaper and asked if I could write a column for each of their issues, simply for the exposure. They obliged, and from this small endeavor, people began reaching out to me with new opportunities.
6. It wasn’t long before Steamy Kitchen was on TV.
I started taking Steamy to a lot of daytime TV networks. Whether I was filming segments in New York, attending conferences in Chicago, or meeting companies and sponsors in between, it seemed I was always flying somewhere. Steamy Kitchen has made its way to the Today Show, CBS Early Show, The List, WFLA’s Daytime, ABC’s Recipe Rehab and so much more. SK was also featured on Martha Stewart Living Radio, Oprah.com, and Parents Magazine, just to name a few.
7. Steamy has 2 cookbooks!
I had the wonderful privilege of authoring 2 cookbooks along the way: The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook and Steamy Kitchen’s Healthy Asian Favorites.
8. Steamy Kitchen also has 2 mottos.
The first is Magical Moments.
Magical moments are essentially small acts of gratitude, and a way to infuse “magic” and joy into the small moments of our own lives and the lives of others. It could be a scribbled note of encouragement passed onto a friend, a heartfelt compliment with a genuine smile to a stranger, or a surprise gift for my sons. I wake up each morning asking myself what kind of Magical Moments could I create that day.
The second is more inwardly focused: Simple Pleasures, Deeply Felt.
This to me means slowing down and noticing the simple things. Everything is so fast-paced, sometimes people forget to just slow down! I have this philosophy tattooed on my arm to remind myself each day to appreciate the simple pleasures. It’s incredibly intentional. Really take in each moment.
9. Our focuses include sensual cooking, mindful eating, and reducing food waste.
Sensual cooking is all about bringing intention into the way we prepare food and a connection to the simplicity of ingredients. Mindful eating implores us to slow down and bring our full awareness to each and every meal.
When it comes to reducing food waste, we employ 2 methods:
Reverse Meal Plan, which is all about shopping from your kitchen first and using up what you have, which saves you time and money, and Love Your Leftovers, which is an assortment of recipes that will completely reinvent your leftover meals into new meals.
Along with these, we also love to talk about Buddha Bowls, which provides you an easy formula to create delicious, healthy meals.
10. SteamyKitchen.com is now one of the longest running and largest food blogs in the world!
Boasting 5 million page views and over 300,000 unique users per month, as well as over 50 million unique lifetime users and 400 million lifetime page views, Steamy Kitchen has been around since the dawn of food blogging, and we couldn’t have done it without you!
Now You Know!
We hope you enjoyed this list of things to know about Steamy Kitchen and that you learned something new! Here’s to you, and to another decade of fun recipes and magical moments!