LACMA Cooking Workshop: Taiwanese Radish Omelette with Garlic Bok Choy

A recent Cooking with LACMA workshop, inspired by the exhibition Fashioning Chinese Women, focused on cultural inheritance and intergenerational legacies. The session, titled Why Meal Trains Matter, was led by Moonlynn Tsai and Yin Chang, co-founders of Heart of Dinner, an organization that combats food insecurity and social isolation among Asian American older adults by delivering care packages with meals, produce, and handwritten notes. Participants decorated bags with motifs from the exhibition and learned recipes suitable for community distribution. Later, Michelin Star–winning chef Minh Phan of Porridge Collective prepared the dishes, which were delivered to elders in Los Angeles by Tsai, Chang, and volunteers. The featured meal, Preserved Radish Egg Omelette (菜脯蛋) with Garlic Sautéed Bok Choy (蒜蓉小白菜), is a nostalgic comfort food for many in the Chinese and Taiwanese communities. Tsai noted that both their grandmothers made this dish, with Yin's grandmother pickling radishes and storing them in repurposed lychee jelly containers. The workshop highlighted the importance of home-cooked love and cultural preservation.