{"id":22198,"date":"2024-06-28T00:26:28","date_gmt":"2024-06-28T04:26:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/multi.nycnewsnetwork.com\/brooklynbuzz\/?p=22198"},"modified":"2025-02-13T09:40:28","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T14:40:28","slug":"22198-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nycnewsnetwork.com\/brooklynbuzz\/22198-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing Hetty Lui McKinnon: 2024 James Beard Award Honoree"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Hannah Berman<\/a><\/p>\n

For most eaters, the word “salad” conjures a plate of leafy greens.<\/p>\n

Sometimes those greens might be freckled with chopped nuts, sliced cherry tomatoes or seasonal fruit, and perhaps rinsed with a vinaigrette; but, at the end of the day, for most, a salad remains defined and restricted by its base. Without its leaves, can you still call a salad a salad?<\/p>\n

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Chef and cookbook author Hetty Lui McKinnon would argue so. When she designs a dish, it might be built on a base of pasta, or even dumplings (see her popular dumpling tomato salad<\/a>) \u2014 but no matter what, if a dish is served at room temp, McKinnon calls it a salad.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This June, McKinnon took home her first\u00a0James Beard\u00a0media award<\/a>, often referred to as the Oscars of the food world, for her new\u00a0veggie-focused, salad-rich cookbook,\u00a0Tenderheart<\/em><\/a>:\u00a0A Cookbook About Vegetables and Unbreakable Family Bonds.<\/em><\/p>\n

Tenderheart<\/em>\u00a0is an ode to vegetables cooked until tender \u2014 McKinnon has been vegetarian since the age of 19 \u2014 and also to her father, the tender-hearted Wai Keung Lui, who passed away when she was 15.<\/p>\n

\u201cI call it my vegetable origin story, because doesn’t everyone have a vegetable origin story?\u201d McKinnon told BK Reader.<\/p>\n

\"hetty1\"
Hetty Lui McKinnon with her James Beard-awarded cookbook “Tenderheart.” Photo by Hannah Berman<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

McKinnon\u2019s father immigrated to Sydney from the south of China. Throughout her early life, he worked as a banana monger at the largest produce market in Sydney. Every day, he would bring home boxes upon boxes of fresh produce from work,\u00a0distributing fruits and veggies to\u00a0his family and as gifts to neighbors.<\/p>\n

This, in part, sparked McKinnon\u2019s lifelong love and respect for vegetables. She wrote\u00a0Tenderheart<\/em>\u00a0to honor\u00a0her father’s\u00a0legacy,\u00a0highlighting dishes built around\u00a0the produce that bound them together.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like I’d lost the connection to him,\u201d McKinnon explained. \u201cAnd then, working on this book, kind of surprisingly, I rediscovered him and gave myself the license to think about him again \u2014 to think about him in a way that wasn’t sad. So this book is really joyous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tenderheart<\/em>\u00a0is McKinnon\u2019s fifth cookbook, and garnered her second James Beard nomination.<\/em>\u00a0She says that winning for this book in particular feels special because it\u2019s not only her most personal work, but it also showcases all aspects of her identity \u2014 as Chinese, Australian, vegetarian, and now, a ten-year resident of Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was first writing about vegetables, perhaps there wasn’t an acceptance that someone who’s Chinese would be the expert about vegetables,\u201d she said. \u201cThere was an expectation, you know, even just five years ago, that if you are of a certain culture, you write only about that type of food.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"tenderheart1\"
Miso-maple sugar snap pea, turnip and strawberry salad. Photo by Hannah Berman<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The recipes in\u00a0Tenderheart<\/em> are inventive and unexpected. McKinnon plots the book around several main character veggies:\u00a0kale, ginger, mushrooms, and kohlrabi, to name a few. She groups recipes that share a base veggie together, which creates an easy index of options \u2014 both salad and non-salad \u2014 for home chefs to work their way through.<\/p>\n

Tenderheart<\/em>\u00a0begs you to snag\u00a0fresh produce, then sprint back to your pantry and mix and match\u00a0the ingredients you already own\u00a0to discover a\u00a0fresh\u00a0new way of looking at things.<\/p>\n

McKinnon knows that her cheeky flavor combinations and loose dish definitions can raise eyebrows, but that doesn\u2019t mean she\u2019s changing her style anytime soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a slow burn, because I\u2019m asking more from people,\u201d McKinnon explained. \u201cIt’s not about fast consumption or just one recipe. I don’t think there’s many people who just have one recipe of mine and don’t come back for more. I’m asking you to be part of something \u2014 and most people do want to be a part of something.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Hannah Berman For most eaters, the word “salad” conjures a plate of leafy greens. Sometimes those greens might be freckled with chopped nuts, sliced cherry tomatoes or seasonal fruit, and perhaps rinsed with a vinaigrette; but, at the end of the day, for most, a salad remains defined and restricted by its base. Without […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5904,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,32,2717],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whats-buzzin","category-top-10-lists","category-bk-news"],"yoast_head":"\nIntroducing Hetty Lui McKinnon: 2024 James Beard Award Honoree - Brooklyn News and Events<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nycnewsnetwork.com\/brooklynbuzz\/22198-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Introducing Hetty Lui McKinnon: 2024 James Beard Award Honoree\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By: Hannah Berman For most eaters, the word “salad” conjures a plate of leafy greens. 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