Jet Tila's Hot Cooking Take That His Grandmother Wouldn't Like

Growing up in Los Angeles, Jet Tila was, quite literally, always surrounded by food. In fact, his parents owned the first Thai grocery store in the country, so much of his early childhood was spent there.

“I was raised in the grocery store, so the beeping of cash registers back in the day, sitting on 50-pound pallets of jasmine rice … my entire childhood was just surrounded by food,” he reminisced on the Food Network Obsessed podcast.

At the time, he didn’t appreciate it, longing instead for days that looked more like his peers. “Other kids had baseball practice and family reunions and gatherings,” he shared. Yet, as an adult, he had a complete change of heart. “Looking back, it was like the best upbringing, and it really led me to every moment of my life right now.”

One of those first moments was when a young Jet found himself floundering in community college, well aware that the academic road map for most was not the path for him. So, he decided to take matters into his own hands and start doing what he already knew how to do so well. “I was like, 'You know what? I'm gonna post these little flyers at our grocery store — 'Learn How to Make Pad Thai With Jet Tila' — $39, and you come to my mom's backyard and I'll demo you through pad thai. I get a call from the LA Times like, ‘Hey, we're gonna photograph this next class,’ I was like, 'What the hell?' And that was kind of my first discovery,” he shared.

From there, Jet became a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times, which eventually landed him a guest spot on Iron Chef America and the attention of Food Network executives who appreciated his talent, authenticity and down-to-earth demeanor.

Jet attributes his trademark humility to his family and specifically his “four-foot-nothing” late grandmother. While she passed before she could really see the success that Jet built for himself, he joked that, “If she came back magically, she'd be like, ‘You don't have a college degree, you're covered in tattoos … oh, my God!’ Asian parenting is tough parenting, right? So, she would focus first on what I didn't accomplish, and then she'd be like, ‘Oh, you did OK,’” he joked.

He then admitted, “She would be really proud … She’d be like, ‘Oh, my God, you did Celebrity Wheel of Fortune,’ because she couldn't speak a lick of English, but she loved just trying to see those little letters spin around,” he laughed.

One thing Jet isn’t sure his grandmother would be too thrilled about is his recent admission that the customary tradition of rinsing rice before cooking it is no longer necessary. Even if he held up a pan to shield himself from the pretend things he was sure she would throw at him for saying this, Jet stood by this statement. “Back in the day, when they milled the jasmine rice from brown to white, there was a ton of extra starch in that bag. The new technology is different,” he explained on a recent episode of Ready Jet Cook.

This tip is a great example of why Ready Jet Cook is so popular. The Emmy-nominated show is loved for its approachable instruction to Asian cooking. “The No. 1 issue with Asian food and the world is, ‘I love to eat it. I have no idea how to cook it’ … my job is to take you into the market, then into the kitchen, and then just give you all the nuances in a very like, not-hoity-toity way,” Jet said.

That magical combination of taking seemingly complicated dishes and breaking them down into simple-to-understand recipes is clearly Jet’s calling. “Ready Jet Cook is really a full-circle moment for me because remember 26 years ago, I got my break from teaching cooking in my mom's backyard, [fast-forward] to now and I'm teaching cooking on Food Network. Teaching really is what makes me the happiest in my work life,” he shared.

In his home life, it’s obvious that Jet relishes his time with his wife, Ali, and their two children, Amaya and Ren. “It's really the true joy of my life at this phase is just kind of watching these two kids become amazing people,” he said of his close-knit family.

If you follow Jet on social media, it’s pretty clear that the feelings are mutual, as his family is often game to appear in Jet’s social media videos. The videos have even become somewhat of a flex (as the kids like to say) for Amaya and Ren. “It made my kids like local little celebrities in their school, so that's cool,” Jet said proudly.

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