ABOUT ME

I was born in Vietnam and came to the Netherlands as an 11-year-old in 1980 via the Philippines with my mother and two brothers.
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My journey is not an everyday one and was at times downright miserable, yet I now remember mostly the good things. And those happy memories are very often about sitting at the table together and even more often about eating.

Because what I ate, and how it tasted, I remember unerringly.I was brought up on Vietnamese cuisine: in Vietnam it was very common for me, as the eldest of the family, to learn to cook for the family at the age of seven. Since then, it has been an amazing journey!

2025

PRESENT

In 2025, The Bible of Vietnamese Cuisine will be launched with more than 200 recipes from South, Central and North Vietnam.

2022

FOOD CONSULTANCY IN CURAÇAO

I developed a menu with various Asian street food dishes from Thailand, China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and, of course, Vietnam!

2020-2022

CULINARY TRIPS

I also culinary travel to Vietnam. During this trip, you will see the dishes from my Vietnamese cookbooks come to life. I travel with you and let you see and taste all the beauty my native country has to offer. Read more here.

2020

my first cookbook, Ăn Ăn

'Ăn ăn' literally means 'eat eat eat'; it is what Vietnamese say when they call their family and friends to the table. “In this contemporary cookbook, you will discover how surprising Vietnamese food can be, from traditional meals to the tastiest street food. Bring the flavor of Southeast Asia into your home with more than eighty irresistible meals and appetizers and taste the richness of a cooking tradition passed down from generation to generation...”

2017-2019

STAR CUISINE

Between 2017 and 2019, I developed different meals with StarCuisine for Marqt.

2017

best dish culinary leiden

2016

PARTICIPATION IN MASTERCHEF HOLLAND

In 2014, we returned to the Netherlands and in 2016 I participated in MasterChef Holland. I stood in the kitchen with well-known chefs such as Yotam Ottolenghi, Meera Sodha, Joris Bijdendijk, Michiel van der Eerde, Robert Kranenborg, Edwin Vinke and Eric van Loo. Top chefs who tasted my food and commented on salty flavors, sours, sweeteners, bitters and umami: they inspired me to cook with even more depth and even more passion.

2014

LEIDEN

In 2014, we returned to the Netherlands.

2012

LEBANON

And when I thought I had tasted just about everything, we moved to Lebanon. The fresh spices, the new flavors: I learned about not only Lebanese cuisine there, but also Palestinian, Armenian, Turkish and Iranian. I rotated in the kitchen of a Lebanese restaurant in Beirut and walked around a lot to see and especially taste. It inspired me to combine Lebanese with Asian dishes: an Indian chicken curry with rice and lentils and tabouleh. Or hummus made from peas and green curry.

2009

SIERRA LEONE

Then we moved to Sierra Leone. There the sea was the biggest source of food. I never saw and ate so many lobsters, crabs and types of fish as I did there. I learned to cook with the seasons there and established my own vegetable garden with pak choi, garbanzos, green beans, cilantro, lemongrass and Thai basil.

2006

HUNGARY

This was followed by Hungary, where except for goulash, there was a little less to do on the culinary front. I cooked mostly Asian food there, because my family missed Asian food so much. From the large Hungarian ducks, I regularly made Peking duck for family and friends.

2003

SINGAPORE

The first stop was Singapore: back to my Asian roots. We ate there regularly in food courts: Chinese, Malaysian/Indonesian, Indian, Thai and Vietnamese. I immersed myself in all these different food cultures. My sense of taste grew with each dish I tasted and tried to recreate at home.

2001

AROUND THE WORLD

I also traveled all over the world with my own husband and children. After a short stay in Istanbul in 2001 because of my husband's work, we were sent to a string of special countries starting in 2002. I threw myself back into cooking.