Chef Esther Choi hosts her new Food Network YouTube series, Cooking With Choi, from her personal kitchen in upstate New York. In the series, she focuses on demystifying cooking Korean food so that home cooks like her feel comfortable and empowered to try a new recipe that they might otherwise be too intimidated to tackle.

She’s taken the same philosophy and adapted it into her very first cookbook, Hand Taste: Cook Like a Korean Grandmother, which is currently available for preorder. She calls it her “labor of love” and shared on the Food Network Obsessed podcast that the book took her over seven years to complete. “Those pages don't write themselves, and a cookbook specifically, you have to test every recipe over and over again to make sure that it works … and I did put so much effort, time and love into this book,” she says.

That dedication and love are deep-rooted for Esther, who is a first-generation Korean American. After immigrating to the United States, Esther’s parents and grandparents settled in a small town outside of Atlantic City, New Jersey, where Esther was born. Throughout her childhood, Esther’s grandmother helped raise her and was the one who instilled a love of her Korean heritage and cooking from a young age. “I didn't grow up in Korea or around many Koreans; it was literally like my family, and that was it, and that's how I learned my heritage through food,” she explains.

It was under her grandmother’s watchful eye that Esther learned the art of sohn-mat, which translates to "hand-taste" in Korean. This is an expression that refers to that “special magic touch that great cooks bring to the food that they make,” Esther explains in a recent post she made introducing her cookbook. In this same post, she credits her grandmother for teaching her this technique, describing her style of cooking as having “so much instinct and heart.” While this concept may feel a bit obscure, Esther’s cookbook is meant to counter that. “It's really for people that want to take any of these recipes and cook [them] at home," Esther explains, emphasizing the recipes are "easy but delicious" and will teach readers about "techniques, but really, the hand taste … that you bring to every recipe."

While Esther sadly lost her beloved halmoni, aka grandmother, several months ago, Esther is determined to honor her by instilling the same love for Korean food and traditions in her toddler son, Leo. “We've made dumplings with my grandmother every year. I want to pass on those traditions down to him, because it meant so much to me, not only for my career, but really identifying who I am and my heritage,” she says.

Luckily for Esther, little Leo is completely game. “I think when you grow up eating [a] very specific type of food it just becomes something that you crave, and for me … I always loved Korean food, even as a child; and it's funny, because my son is exactly the same way … if I don't give him Korean food for a few days he'll ask for it at two years old,” she says. She’s not kidding. Esther occasionally posts what she’s making her son for dinner on her Instagram feed and you can see for yourself as he excitedly grabs the Korean short ribs she’s prepared right out of her hands.

“I think having a baby really opened my eyes to a new world of food, and how I view food and cooking and everything in between,” she says. “[As a] baby, you're exposed to everything for the first time … so every flavor, texture, even the way things look like, everything matters … so I think when it comes to his palate, I try to be very diverse … I want him to try everything, and I'm not scared to give him, you know, some spicy food or things that you wouldn't imagine giving a child.” As if to prove this very statement, you can see Esther in another video as she feeds Leo crab and caviar, proving she is most certainly putting a fair amount of money where her mouth is.

“Now that he turned two, he can really have everything, and if he doesn't, then he won't, but you have to keep trying, and I think that's my mentality when it comes to feeding him,” she explains. “Now I'm reexperiencing everything through his lens. So it's just been really fun.”

LISTEN TO FOOD NETWORK OBSESSED: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeart | Amazon Music | Acast