Kua Txob

Kua Txob (hot chili condiment) is made with fiery-hot Thai chili peppers, green onions, cilantro, lime juice, salt, fish sauce and sometimes a little sugar. Pounding the ingredients together with a mortar and pestle brings out the flavor. However, there are so many ways to make this dish that we have included eleven different variations in Cooking From the Heart: The Hmong Kitchen in America. Kua Txob is one of the bold flavors we hope everyone will try.

Book Launch

Busy times! Every day emails fly back and forth between us and Heather Skinner, a publicist for the University of Minnesota Press, working out the details of a trip to Minnesota to launch our book. We are excited that the Hmong Cultural Center in St. Paul has agreed to sponsor a Meet the Author Event and book signing on May 21, 3-5 PM. After a few more details are in place we will list all of our appearances on our Web site. We are looking forward to meeting people who are interested in Hmong cooking!

Final Edits

The final details are being worked out between us and Melody Lacina, an editor at Wilstad & Taylor, the firm hired by the Press to copy-edit and design our book. We are VERY glad they are perfectionists, but sometimes it seems like we will never be done. We have both decided that when the last "t" is crossed and the last "i" is dotted, we will take our husbands (in our respective cities) out for a nice meal to celebrate - with someone else doing the cooking and the cleanup. Take a look at the pile of manuscripts we have created in the last year, going back and forth with revision after revision.

Gran Torino

Have you seen the movie, “Gran Torino” yet? It is about an angry, lonely old guy (Clint Eastwood) and his Hmong neighbors. It’s a beautiful movie, on many levels. We have decided that we need to thank Clint Eastwood with the very first copy of our book; because his movie has at least part-way solved a marketing dilemma for us. Many people used to have a blank look on their faces when we explained that our book is about Hmong cooking and culture. Now everyone who has seen the movie, knows at least a little bit, about the Hmong. So, ua tsaug (thank you) Mr. Eastwood, and all of the people who created the story and brought it to life! We hope that you ate lots of great Hmong food while filming the picture.

Finishing Our Book

Hi everybody! We have been so busy finishing up our book that we have not been putting new posts on our BLOG. In January, Sami traveled down to Sheng’s and we worked out the final recipes for our book. It was fun and exhausting. We cooked and cooked and wrote and wrote. Here is a photo that was taken then: From left to right are Sheng’s husband, Leo, Sami’s husband, Don, Sheng’s oldest son, Eddie and his wife, Maikia, Sheng’s daughter Frances, Sheng’s sisters, Blia, Der and “Little” Sami, “Big” Sami, Sheng and Sheng’s parents, Mai and Kao.