And I wanted to know what stirred you to action.

Yeah.

Hi, everybody.

So happy to be here.

Yeah.

I mean, it really was that election in November.

And I think that I was kind of coming at it from a few angles.

Okay.

Yeah.

The thought of developing more baking recipes after that, I was like, "I just don't think I could do it." And Kitty, at the time I was doing a lot of hot pot pop-ups at places around New York.

I'd written a story for New York Magazine about hot pot at home, and I felt like a little whisper of a zeitgeist-y something.

Like, I felt like the world post-COVID was ready for an interactive meal.

It was about sharing.

That was about getting a little messy.

That was, you know, unpretentious, and gathering and hosting at home felt like a trend that was really taking off, too, people just wanting to gather and being at home.

... and the book's been out for a number of months and, and you're going back out on the road, what have you been hearing from folks, and what's, like, the biggest learning experience that you've gained from, from this project?

end.... you talk about specific hardware, maybe even have a, a two-part divided hot pot, right? Is, uh, anything else you'd need?

Yes.

I love these sort of dual-chambered hot pot toppers.

Um, often they might be just bisected straight down the middle into two chambers of equal size, or maybe there's, like, a bit of a wavy, undulating line, so it looks like that yin-yang symbol.

And what this does is you can have these contrasting hot pot broths.

So maybe you have, like, a really spicy broth or a really rich broth.

Maybe it's made with, like, beef bones or has kind of dried chilies in it.

W- what is it I should learn from hot pot in terms of culinary technique? In other words, are there a couple things I should take away from this that would change how I view cooking or how I cook?

Um, you write about your mother, so tell us about that.

Yeah, so my mom is from Beijing, and she grew up with hot pot as, you know, kind of this restorative solution to these brutally cold winters.

And, you know, when she was growing up, it was a very simple, almost austere thing.

You'd start with water.

You might accent it with mutton, not even lamb.

You would add napa cabbage to kind of brighten things up, and it's all kind of flavored with this intense white sesame dipping sauce.

Um, that's how I learned how to do it, was through, was through my mom's experience of it.

Um, talk about how dumplings play into this.