Tommy Tang is a Thai-born chef and television personality well known for his PBS series of cooking shows.
Born in Bangkok, Tang was the eldest son in a family of 12 children. Leaving school at eleven to help support his family, Tang held a succession of jobs that included a floor-fan cleaner, welder, construction worker, busboy, wheelbarrow maker, boxer, auto mechanic, tennis teacher and drummer. During that time, Tang learned to cook alongside his father in the family restaurant in Bangkok's Grand Central.
After emigrating to the U.S., Tang took a day job as chef and manager at a small Thai restaurant in Hollywood, California. In 1982, Tang opened his own restaurant in the Melrose Avenue section of West Hollywood. [1] In 1986, Tang opened another restaurant in the TriBeCa neighborhood of New York City. [2] In 1994, Tang opened a third restaurant in Pasadena, California. [3] All of the restaurants have been closed for almost 25 years.
Tang produces a highly regarded Cooking & Travel Series for PBS, with almost 200 shows since 1994.
His first cookbook, Modern Thai Cuisine, was released in 1991. It was largely hailed as being the book that "demystified" the art of preparing Modern Thai Cuisine and eventually went into eight printings. His second cookbook, Noodles & Rice and Something Nice, was equally successful. [4]
He also continues to oversee the Tsunami Children’s Foundation he founded in 2005. [5]
Hakka cuisine is the cooking style of the Hakka people, and it may also be found in parts of Taiwan and in countries with significant overseas Hakka communities. There are numerous restaurants in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Thailand and the United States serving Hakka cuisine. Hakka cuisine was listed in 2014 on the first Hong Kong Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Jacques Pépin is a French chef, author, culinary educator, television personality, and artist. After having been the personal chef of French President Charles de Gaulle, he moved to the US in 1959 and after working in New York's top French restaurants, refused the same job with President John F. Kennedy in the White House and instead took a culinary development job with Howard Johnson's. During his career, he has served in numerous prestigious restaurants, first, in Paris, and then in America. He has appeared on American television and has written for The New York Times, Food & Wine and other publications. He has authored more than 30 cookbooks, some of which have become best sellers. Pépin was a longtime friend of the American chef Julia Child, and their 1999 PBS series Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home won a Daytime Emmy Award. He also holds a BA and a MA from Columbia University in French literature.
Thomas Aloysius Keller is an American chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author. He and his landmark Napa Valley restaurant, The French Laundry in Yountville, California, have won multiple awards from the James Beard Foundation, notably the Best California Chef in 1996, and the Best Chef in America in 1997. The restaurant is a perennial winner in the annual Restaurant Magazine list of the Top 50 Restaurants of the World.
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