"Insist on yourself; never imitate."
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
I am a Wasian kid from Alaska who never quite stayed put after that.
My mother is Thai. My father is from Illinois. They landed in Nebraska, where I was born, and then we ended up in Alaska, which is where I became myself. Growing up there teaches you things other places don’t. You learn to figure things out. You learn the environment does not care about your plans. You learn that showing up is the whole game.
Growing up gay in Alaska in the 90s taught me something else: resilience isn’t a word. It’s a skill. It’s knowing your own mind so clearly that other people’s discomfort with it stops mattering. Alaska gave me a sense of self I have never once misplaced.
The day after I graduated high school, I left.
I traded the tundra for San Francisco to study graphic design and find my community. Design still dictates everything I do: from how I frame a photo to how I think about what belongs in a perfect bowl of khao soi.
New York came next, where I leaned into fashion and the kind of aesthetic education you only get from a city that takes clothes seriously.
Then Boulder, where I discovered what happens when you run French technique and Italian patience through a palate shaped by Asian heritage and Midwestern comfort. Something interesting happens. Something that doesn’t quite have a name yet.
Sobriety sent me back to my digital roots, and toward my family roots. I landed in Omaha in a UX and marketing role, met my husband, and we adopted Phoebe.
Eventually, Chicago found us. We kept coming back. We kept eating well. We kept adding one more day. At some point, it stopped being a visit and became home.
HEAVYT exists because I love to eat. Because I love to share. Because the best version of a meal is too many plates, not enough table, and everyone leaning over each other to try something. We had our wedding dinner served family style. That is not a detail. That is a philosophy.
I have been sober for over a decade. I never forgot how to have a good time. I just changed what that meant. The world is finally catching up: bars are doing genuinely interesting things with mocktails now, and those of us who don’t drink can finally order something worth drinking. It only took twenty years.
I travel constantly. I eat constantly. I am relentlessly, inconveniently, optimistic about all of it.
The Promise
Every recommendation here was paid for out of pocket. Every opinion is genuinely held. Nothing was comped. Nothing was sponsored. Nobody asked for a favorable review and got one.
This is one perspective, built from a life spent eating, traveling, and paying attention. It is not the final word on anything. It is an honest one.
The table is for everyone.
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