Hi friends! This food blogging journey has provided opportunities I never thought would be possible. One of the biggest blessings has been attending media events at Melissa’s Produce. I’ve met many of my culinary heroes there. Most recently, this includes Chef Jet Tila, who was promoting his first cookbook “101 Asian Dishes You Need To Cook Before You Die.”
There may have been a serious fan girl moment when I gave him a Diet Coke and he graciously looked at pictures of my grand babies. Yeah, I’m that girl. #TeamTila
At Melissa’s we sampled several dishes from Chef Tila’s new book: Kung Pao Shrimp, Szechuan-Style Green Beans, a quick and easy Chinese Chicken Salad, a beautiful vegetable feast called Buddha’s Delight, Mongolian Beef, Cinnamon and Five Spice Easy Donuts and Thai Iced Tea.
My favorite was the Kung Pao Shrimp! Just look at that color! Gorgeous!
Chef Tila, best known for numerous appearances on Food Network, has some serious culinary credentials! His family opened the first Thai Market in Los Angeles and he grew up doing homework in a back booth of the family restaurant. As a teenager, he was sweeping floors and boxing ingredients at the store for chefs like Wolfgang Puck and Susan Feniger. He started teaching cooking classes in his back yard, worked as a Corporate Chef, spent a few years cooking in Vegas and has competed on Iron Chef (against Iron Chef Morimoto -yikes!) That’s only part of the story! He holds several world records for food, he is the U.S. Culinary Ambassador to Thailand. Even with all his credentials, Chef Jet Tila is humble, down-to-earth and a true teacher. He wants to share the process of how to make Asian dishes, encourage readers to get in the kitchen and try. Get better by doing it over and over again! Isn’t that true with anything? We get better and learn more every time we do something.
Speaking of learning, Chef Tila showed us some Stir-Fry Mastery tips and prepared his famous Pineapple Fried Rice. He patiently explained the differences in Asian cuisine, along with sharing the things we should look for in the grocery store to make our dishes even more authentic. Tip: there is more than one kind of soy sauce and you should be using more oyster sauce in your dishes!
Doesn’t this look amazing?!?
101 Asian Dishes You Need To Cook Before You Die by Chef Jet Tila is available on Amazon Barnes and Noble and other retail outlets!
Keep up with #TeamTila on Facebook: Chef Jet Tila Fan Page
On Twitter: Tweet at Tila
On Instagram: Picture this!
Of course, gracious thanks to Melissa’s Produce for hosting this event and providing us with a copy of Jet Tila’s Cookbook! I’m excited to cook out of this book and learn more about Asian cuisine.
What’s your favorite Asian dish? Let me know in the comments below! Maybe we can learn to cook it together?
Until next time friends, live life deliciously!
I enjoyed your cooking while promoting the copper chef titan pan which I purchased.
We decided to use your simple seasoning over chicken adding peas and corn with noodle.
It was simple to cook and ready in no time. We were both blown away with the flavour and the short time it took to prepare. A marvellous difference from Indian cooking and time saving. Please let us know where we can purchase you recipe book with 101 in Australia. At our age we need to change the spices .You have two more excited fans
Cheers Gene & Terry
You are so cute and this must have been an amazing experience! So happy for you!
Thank you! I was professional and composed, I promise. ;-) Chef Jet is so genuine, Jane. You would have loved the presentation. He’s just so darn *nice.* One of the good guys, for sure!