Here at the Times, we love food.

And living in California, Vietnamese culture and cuisine is all around us.

The famous beef noodle soup fuh, although I like chicken fah better.

The big sandwiches called bun-mi and my favorite Vietnamese dish.

It's a vermicelli noodle salad called boon. It seems simple, but it's so good.

You put some fish sauce on it, some hoisin, eat it with some chilled chrysanthemum tea, and,

oh my gosh, it's like, I need some after this.

Happy Lunar New Year. Tets a national holiday and not just in Vietnam, but all over the world, wherever the

Vietnamese diaspora is.

And in the United States, traditions like red envelopes filled with money, special dishes

and parades, they've become a part of life in American cities, not just the big ones like

San Jose or Houston and Little Saigon and Orange County,

California, where the big Vietnamese populations are, but even small towns in the south and beyond.

I'm Gustavo Ariano. You're listening to The Times, Daily News from the LA Times. It's Tuesday, February 1st, 2022.

Now, I can romanticize the food for hours, but I also know there's narratives of colonialism,

resistance, and diaspora behind all of it. So for this TED, I want to get into all that.

And there's no better guess that I could think of for this conversation that our three guests today.

Kung Pham is founder of Red Boat Fish Sauce.

Diop Tran is an L.A. base chef whose family owns a legendary Fah 79 chain.

And journalist Tian Wen is an acclaimed food writer.

So they all wrote a cookbook together.

Kung Deeptien, welcome to the Times. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Okay, so for those who have no idea what TED is about, I'd actually, instead of trying to explain it, I'd like each of you to share your favorite memories of the holiday. Deep, what's your Tet memory? We went out out. I mean, everybody in the family was a good cook, not just my grandmother.

...