She Quit Silicon Valley to Build a Farm (Her Mom Was Right!) | Sophia Nguyen Eng

Imagine leaving a successful Silicon Valley career for a 40-acre permaculture mini farm in the Appalachian region of Eastern Tennessee. My next guest, Sophia Ang, is an award-winning author of the Nourishing Asian Kitchen cookbook and a first-generation Vietnamese American. Left a very successful tech career to start a farm. And with her husband, Tim, hosts a podcast called Call to Farms. Please enjoy. Hey, YouTube fam. 80% of you watching aren't subscribed. If you're digging these episodes and haven't hit that button yet, now's the time. Every sub helps us grow, land bigger guests, and keep the good stuff coming. So hit subscribe and stay curious. Hello, Sophia.

Hey, hey, James.

I have to just put it right out there, right from the beginning. I always feel just a very special connection to you. Because of the fact that we're both from San Jose. And it's kind of odd for me because I didn't know that, you know, childhood home had that much tethering for me because I moved away and as did you, obviously. But yet it—

Yeah.

Yet when I meet people specifically from the city, from San Jose, like it just, it just like I immediately feel like, oh, I get this person.

Mm-hmm. Do you feel that? It's home. I do. It feels like home.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, we, yeah, we met at Polyface a couple of years ago, the whole family, if you remember, at Joel's. Oh yeah. I met you.

Yeah. Your mom, your dad, your kids. And I'm so sorry to learn your dad is now dealing with dementia as well. I'm so, how is that process going?

It's been rough, to be honest. We didn't know what we were dealing with. I mean, he had always had kind of a depression and anxiety before, but it just progressively got worse and worse, and we didn't know we were dealing with dementia, but now it's very clear. He, it's been a rapid decline. And so it's been a lot harder for us to manage as a family than I had expected.

Well, let's talk about family for a second because Vietnamese descent, right? You're a first-generation Vietnamese American.

Correct.

San Jose, where I grew up specifically in downtown, huge, heavy, heavy Vietnamese population. I mean, I feel very intimate with the Vietnamese culture because of that. I mean, they were all All of my first friends were Vietnamese, my first crushes. I mean, it, it's such a, it's such a beautiful culture from my experience. And one thing though, I think is very associated for me with that culture is that, um, they take care of their elderly, like that the families stick together. I remember one of my good friends, Anh, Anh, uh, I won't say his last name in case, uh, He wants privacy, but, uh, An was, um, his entire family all lived in this small apartment. Like, like, I even think their grandparents were with them when we were younger. Um, is that, is that something that you are modeling as your parents, uh, as your dad is experiencing dementia? And how important is that for you that, that you, you know, kind of honor the generations?

It is so important for, for me because it's a way to repay my parents back. When they came here to America in 1975, they didn't have anything. And I was born in San Jose. I didn't know any better. They, they worked 2 full-time jobs each and barely made ends meet even back then. This is— but I was afforded all the other things that any other, you know, American second generation, whatever you want to call it. child got. So I was able to go to college. I was able, I mean, I had to work my way, I had to pay my way. But now in their old age, because they didn't plan for retirement, right? It's, they gave everything to my sister and I. This is a way to take care of them and honor what they have given to us. My mom always said that I am the asphalt. I create the asphalt for you girls to be the car to drive over. So I make the— in her, I mean, that's directly translated, but I guess what she's trying to say is, I'm creating this smooth path for you. I'm laying the groundwork so that you can just keep driving. And if you think about it, Tim and I talk about this all the time because he's second generation, right? Meaning his— Dad was born here in Chicago, went to Berkeley. And so Tim didn't have any of that. And we, we talk about how, because I'm the daughter of an immigrant and how my mom has that perspective, I've been able to catch up to him even as a second generation, right? If that makes sense.

No, would you explain that for those listening? So Tim is your husband, and that, that's a fascinating connection. So you are first generation, Vietnamese American. He is second generation.

Correct.

So, how does that— how are you guys different? How are you similar?

So, I'd say I'm very connected to my traditional roots. Like, I still speak Vietnamese, and that's how I— he doesn't speak a lick of— he just speaks English. He doesn't speak Mandarin, Cantonese. Now, he's Chinese American, but doesn't speak anything, like, in his native tongue. His native tongue is English. And so what I'm saying is, even though, because of my immigrant background, we have that, I'm not to say that he doesn't have the hardworking, right, aspects of it, but we have a unique perspective from our history and being so closely connected to it. And then also seeing like modern families, how to quickly catch up to that, but also implementing a lot of that hard work. ethic that I got from my parents. Not to say that his parents didn't have the harder work ethic, but there's a lot more of this internal drive that comes from knowing that you are behind because one, financially, language is different, right? And not being able to assimilate. Whereas his family, his parents always said, no, we're not going to teach you Mandarin or Cantonese because That's going to actually, we want you to assimilate better to American culture and not have to be bogged down by any of the traditions. Whereas, you know, I'm on the other side of like, I want to continue to honor my traditions. And how do I bring that to the forefront in a beautiful way?

Now, this is an interesting topic, assimilation, right? I mean, that's kind of what your cookbook's about. I mean, it's kind of what, it's kind of in a sense saying like, Well, I don't know if we should assimilate, right? I mean, it's kind of like recognizing that not all assimilation, uh, is for our good.

Correct. Not all. That's the key point there. There's a lot of the beautiful aspects of it, right? Because now we have these, the best restaurants that we've eaten at in Napa, I'm sure you're familiar with, have a, um, A hybrid of both the American and the Asian-infused and inspired recipes, right? And that's cookbook number 2 that we're working on. But there's beauty in combining it, kind of like the Vietnamese cuisine. The fact that we even have phở is because we've brought in some of the French influences into our culinary experiences, or that we have bánh mì, the Vietnamese sandwiches. Or that we have cà phê sữa đá, which is the Vietnamese coffee with the condensed milk. That's made popular now. A lot of our— the Vietnamese cuisine is made popular now because of the French influences from France over to Vietnamese cuisine.

But in that sense though, is there a pure Vietnamese cuisine? I mean, Vietnam was affected by other cultures so intensely.

Yes.

Today, right?

Yeah, exactly.

So can you, can you actually look back at the Vietnamese cuisine and say, oh, like this is purely Vietnamese? Because everything you just mentioned is not.

I think correct. Everything I mentioned, but there are still very traditional recipes as well, especially when you look into like, um, Well, you know, it's interesting because you bring up a good point. Vietnam was also under like Chinese and Japanese and then French, right, control. And so, I don't know, that's a good question. I guess you could pose the question like, what is true clean American cuisine too, as well, or like of any culture?

Right. But, but I think though, it's safe to say that the things that you grew up understanding the things you grew up eating are for you traditional, whether they're culturally traditional, it doesn't matter that it's, that it's for you. You were being, you know, provided with foods that your grandparents had eaten, that your parents then, you know, your mother just made as well. And then you came, you know, here you are in the US though, and you're not seeing foods. out in public that you're making at home, first of all. But then secondly, as you get into health and your interest in realizing like, oh, food matters for my health, you're not seeing any of these Asian principles, concepts in what's deemed as kind of healthy food.

Correct. I wasn't. I think it's becoming, I mean, that's the whole premise of the Nourishing Asian Kitchen was to bring that to the forefront. To say, hey, these are our traditional Asian recipes or the preparations and the way that we honor our food to heal, you know, our mothers, our grandmothers, our elders, our new moms, our babies, that hasn't really been talked about before. You know, I think that there is so much that we are going to lose from many other cultures too. Because I mean, it's kind of on our generation to capture that from our elders. And the way that society, the way that we move now, and I'm totally guilty of it myself, is that we're just trying to get through the day. We're trying to raise our children. We're trying to stay up with technology. That you're telling me I need to stop all of this and slow down. to learn how to cook and learn how to cook where it's, you know, honoring our traditions rather than taking something out of the freezer and sticking it into the oven or sticking it into the microwave. That's something that, you know, is through— I may be hitting my late 30s, early 40s that I've had to come to a point where it came to a head where, okay, I can continue to go down this path, but I'm neglecting everything that I learned from my grandfather, my grandmother, my mother when I was a child. Those conversations aren't happening today. Even when I went through pre-med at George Washington University, I only had one nutrition course. And that was at the moment where I realized I was learning more about integrative health and holistic health from my grandfather in the backyard, or my grandmother in the kitchen, or my mom at the grocery store. I was learning more from them than I had ever learned. you know, spending a copious amount of money and time investing into this institution, which totally grateful for, but it also, you know, there's a time and place for that too. Yeah.

Let's take a step back then. 'Cause, um, I want people to understand more of your journey to writing a cookbook, which was not at all in your zygote. Right. So, so grew up, Thinking you were going to become a doctor.

Yeah, I was pre-med. That was another way to— I mean, I was always drawn to it as a child because my mom would bring home these chickens from the local farmer, an Asian farmer who kept all of the innards in there. And so I remember like actually—

The head as well, still on?

Head, feet. Not only that, but the eggs. Like sometimes I would open up a chicken and an Like not just the sack of eggs, but a whole egg with the shell in it intact. And like, as a child, I was really fascinated by it because I only saw eggs in a grocery store, never in a whole chicken. And it actually—

You didn't know where your food came from, right?

Right. So that all like really, I wanted to then become a cardiologist. I loved surgery. I loved just like dissecting things. So it started at a very young age, and I knew already in college I wanted to get into health. And I thought that by being pre-med, but being a doctor, we could actually learn about like health and nutrition. Because my grandfather always said, ăn để sống, đừng có sống để ăn, which means eat to live, do not live to eat. Like, don't overindulge. Whatever you eat should be to restore your health, to live healthy.

Oh, that's such a powerful. saying, because I've been really trying to articulate more and more to people that this energy that we put towards food, I love this, right? I'm like, that's, we shouldn't be putting that energy towards food. That is reserved for people. I love you, right? But when we say, I love pizza, I love ice cream or something like that, we're putting this, we're doing exactly what your grandfather said. We're, we're We're living to eat, right?

Yep. That's right. I think that is what majority of Americans now, we live to eat.

That's so good. So what happened though? Because you're not a doctor, so, and you got into tech before you're doing what you're doing now. So what went wrong or what went right?

What went so right? So then I went on to So this is what happened. So I went to Villanova University and we did a shadowing event where I followed around doctors in the ER. So I was like really in love. I don't know if you remember this from when we were kids, but back when we were little, there used to be this game called Emergency Room. And like you would have these people, these characters come in and you would diagnose and treat them. So it stuck with me. I loved it. I played it for endless hours when I was a little kid. So naturally I said, okay, well, let me just try to Play around, see what it's like to be an ER doctor. And I remember back then, like, I am deathly afraid of children, like other people's kids. I just— my kids I love, but other people's kids, very uncomfortable around. I don't want to break them. So I remember I was shadowing some ER doctors and they opened up a room and said, this is the on-call room. And it was bunk beds. And I remember at that point thinking, I don't think I'm going to have kids ever. But if I were to have kids, it would be really hard for me to sleep in here and treat other people's kids if I knew that my kid was home sick. So I don't know why that flashed through my mind because I never thought I wanted to be a mom, even as a, you know, young 20-year-old for a while. And so that really— Really shook me up. And I thought, okay, there's that along with other things that I said, well, how do I find a career where if I know that could be a potential that I would be able to stay at home or at least like run my own schedule, but still be in the field of nurturing and helping others heal? So I went on to get my master's in clinical psychology and then moved back to the Bay Area. where now I had the tenets of using buyer psychology, understanding psychology, as well as the scientific mindset of like testing things and applying it to my tech background. So, I learned how to code when I was in 5th grade. That was, you know, growing up in San Jose, that's, you know, QBasic was my first programming language when I was in 5th grade. And so, I took all of that back to the Bay Area. And realized that I can help translate marketing to the online world, the digital marketing space. This is before it was really a thing the way it is today and use psychology and the science background of testing it all to help people and businesses convert online. So I did a lot of testing from like button colors to landing pages, email campaigns, all of that, you know, 15 years ago. To, of course, like climbing up that corporate ladder and making it to an executive level, then having my second kid. And right after I had her, I said, you know, I really need to look into why we're educating our children based off of their birth date. So we in the American education system tend, we follow the September 1st rule, right? So if you're born before or after, that dictates your child's grade. And even then I was like, well, how come we don't teach to mastery? Like, that is just really interesting because when—

What do you mean by teach to mastery?

Teach to mastery. Like, I remember that's what I kept hearing. Why don't we teach to mastery? Meaning, why don't we teach a child based on How, or not even just child, even ourselves, how do we teach them so that you master a subject and then you move on? Why is it based off your birth date? Like, just because you're born like on September 1st or before or after doesn't mean that you are qualified or know enough of the topics to be at that age, right? That first grade level, for example, or kindergartner. And the reason why I ask that is because our oldest had another student that she was classmates with in TK, so transitional kindergarten. This is in California, right? So there's all sorts of like, there's junior kindergarten, then transitional kindergarten, then you hit like kindergarten. And I, and it's all dictated by your birth date. And I, and I remember, uh, this boy was born in August and he moved over to kindergarten and, um, Emily had to stay back another year even though she was more advanced. She had said he scribble scrabbled, right? And she was coloring in the lines and he was just going everywhere. Yet he was promoted to kindergarten just because he was born in August and she was born in November. She was held back. So this whole idea of like, wait, how come we don't teach to mastery? Which now with AI coming into the fold with education, that's a whole nother thing that I've been exploring. But it's really made me question because when we work with our companies, for example, or we work with other people, it's not based off of your birthdate or your grade. Right? Your boss could be younger than you. And, and how do you navigate through that? Why don't we teach ourselves, like, how come the education system isn't developed so that we are— it's specialized education, or that if you are wanting to learn math, you are learning at the speed that you're wanting to go at. So whether you're slower at reading or you're faster, or, and you know, you want to accelerate that, it should be— At the pace that's designed specifically for you. Ideally.

We're jumping over why you ended up kind of changing your eating habits, which I definitely want to cover, but let's just go, let's dive into this a little bit because it sounds like really you're, you're jumping to some of the supportive thinking that has resulted in you and Tim unschooling or homeschooling your kids.

Right. And all of it started because we looked at our food. And it wasn't until our oldest was born that I looked into, you know, I was gifted these books that said, hey, make sure that you source organic apples if you want to make applesauce. And I know I've shared the story before, but I didn't know how to make applesauce because that's not in in our culture, we just don't cook our, our fruits. And I know it's simple now.

India doesn't cook fruit at all.

We don't, we don't cook our fruit. That's our, that's our dessert. I mean, that every time I got fruit, it was sliced fresh at the end of a meal to kind of help wash down the meal, but we never cooked it.

I didn't know, like, purees. Do you think it's even deeper than just it being, you know, dessert, that it's, that maybe there's a reason why the culture believes it's better to have it raw than cooked?

I don't know. That's a great question. That's a great question. Maybe access.

Um, or, you know, even heat probably destroys the nutrients, things like that.

I, yeah, I believe, I believe heat does. Um, especially when it comes to to fruits and vegetables. And so, I mean, ideally, just how we were born and raised, I just ate fruit raw. And so when it came to making applesauce, I remember one of the books that said, you know, try to source organic apples because your baby's body is not yet developed enough to process the harmful toxic chemicals from herbicides and pesticides. And I thought, okay, fine, I'll go buy organic apples. This is what, 13 years ago? But at what point then is her body going to be developed enough to process the harmful toxic chemicals like herbicides and pesticides?

Why do you think you were ready? Like, we get gifted books, you know, all the time in our life, right? We get told, given advice all the time. Why did you listen to this? Like, was there something going on other than that you were a new mom? Do you think that was it?

I think it was new mom and being a new mom. When I was starting to wean her off of breast milk, it was, okay, what's the next thing? You know, you walk down the aisles as, you know, every other one of my woman colleagues at work did. You just buy it. Your, your baby food from the counter. But I remember picking up a jar and looking at the color and going, well, am I going to be willing to eat this myself? And I remember thinking, well, I don't want to eat this muck. So how am I going to feed it to her? And that's what started coming like, okay, I guess I can make my own baby food. Never thought of it before. My sister didn't have babies. I didn't grow up with like young nieces and nephews. I didn't have any young siblings. So I just never had had these, the exposure to making your own baby food. But when I had my own, then it was like, okay, how do I figure this out so I don't screw this up? And that, I think that's where I, it started dismantling everything for me. But, you know, I—

And at this time, you and Tim are in the Bay Area, right?

We're still in the Bay Area.

And like, so he's a realtor in the Bay Area, you're doing tech. You're new parents. And then this changes your perspective of like, wait, DIY my own food. Wait, what's— and then you kind of go into the rabbit hole of nutrition.

Yep.

And then what happens?

So I found Sally Fallon Morell's Nourishing Traditions book, changed my life, and then started looking into, okay, well, all the things that mom said. when I was growing up didn't sound so crazy anymore. Like all the things that, a lot of the things in our traditions I never was really proud to share. So like this Nourishing Asian Kitchen cookbook of mine has been very redemptive in the last year that it came out because she would tell me as a child at Safeway, they would sell the gummy bears in bulk. I don't know if you remember this, but I loved gummy bears. I still do. And she would say, you can have it, but you have to pick out the clear ones. And I love the red ones. The red ones were cherry flavored. And I thought, well, okay, fine. So I would just buy the clear ones. Now fast forward, you know, 20, 28 years, red, red dye. And, but she knew that intuitively. She knew that with soda, we never got soda. We got milk and we got water.

You guys were the only people that purchased clear Coke. Is that true? Do you remember clear Coke?

I don't.

Oh my gosh. Did I just reveal how old I am? Clear Coke was Coke's attempt to revitalize their product. And it was literally, they pulled out all the caramel colorings and all that stuff, and people thought it was disgusting, yet it was the exact same taste.

That's crazy.

It's just the look. So that's really interesting. I want to dive into a little bit about this because I think it's fascinating. So first-generation Vietnamese American, and here you are in American culture, and you're not really respecting your own culture. And it took—

Having a kid.

Having a kid. But even then, it doesn't sound like you were fully like going to your mom for advice. You were, you were getting advices from coworkers and people giving you books. But it took like, it's almost like it took the Weston A. Price Foundation and their emphasis on traditional foods for you to then go, oh, wait, I come from a tradition.

Correct. I fought my mom a lot, a lot. Like, I remember after giving birth, there's, in our culture, we have like a 40-day after phase where you don't do certain things, you eat certain things. For example, you keep your head warm. And I thought it was the silliest thing. You don't take a shower for 30 days. And I took a shower every day, right? But I remember, A week, I was a week into after giving birth. And I said, I broke down and it could have been postpartum, but I literally broke down and cried. And I said, Mom, I need to take a shower. Like, I can't, there's all these things going on. I need to like wash this up. And she was like, she's like, fine, it is your choice if you do. But she told me, you know, make sure you shut the door, you turn the heat on, you don't turn the fan on, let the steam just, She was all about heat. And even after that, she said, keep your head warm and don't put your head by the window because the draft will come in. Well, I didn't listen because I think I know better. And I slept without, you know, having a hat on. And that night, like that next day, I woke up with like the worst migraine, the worst headache of my life. Like it was like searing pain through my skull. And it was in that moment that I said, okay, like, I may consciously fight, but there is something there that I need to stop and listen to because I'm fighting against what, in the American culture, right, there's actually a term for people who came by boat, right? You call them boat people. And it's a condescending term. And my parents were boat people. Instead of embracing that, because I was born in the States, I looked down and frowned upon it. But there is so much wisdom in that, in honoring like traditions and like specifically the nourishing traditions of our Asian culture that I completely dismissed up until I had my first kid and was completely humbled by that.

You know, gosh, it's making me actually verklempt talking about this, 'cause I remember I remember going to my friend's. I mean, I remember how he was embarrassed to bring people to his apartment, you know?

Yeah.

Uh, A, the fact that they were in an apartment versus a house was, was, uh, shaming for him. Um, and the smells were different, you know, that there was such a— I don't know if it's pressure. I think you would be able to answer that better than I could, but like, But there was definitely a vibe of like, be American.

Mm-hmm.

And, and do it this way versus the old way. And, and, and I don't— like I said, I don't know if it's— well, what was that, you think? Do you, do you think it was a— almost like an ethnic cleansing to a degree? Or do you just think it was kind of like, that was the '80s or the '90s? Like, that was just kind of what it was like then of like, If you're in America, you just, you're pro-American habits and lifestyles.

I don't know. It was very strong though. I don't know if it was growing up in the '80s as an Asian American, but I felt all of that. I completely resonate with how your friend must have been feeling. Like we, we have, we have fermented smells. Like we ferment, my mom fermented, and it's not just like a normal cabbage. It was like the stinkiest cabbage ever. And then on top of that, you know, we've got the daikon radish, which smells so bad when you're even pickling it and opening up the fridge, much less like she put it in my, my banh mi sandwich and put it in my backpack for science camp. So it got like all hot. And then when I brought it out, like it smelled like, just like somebody just let it all out. Right. And, and, and you, I remember hearing the kids say, oh, who farted? And I'm like, oh gosh, it's nothing. It's not from my backpack that I just brought out this sandwich. And no, I'm not eating it, right? So it's all of that that brought in a lot of shame. But that's why I'm saying like the cookbook has been so redemptive because now we can talk about the fact that, you know, even when my, actually when my mom came to America and they were sponsored by a family in Seattle, it was a church family. She had asked them with her broken English where the organ meat was. She was asking for like the gizzards. She was asking for the chicken feet.

She was asking— You said they were in Seattle?

Seattle. They were in—

Did they point toward Portland, Oregon and say, oh, the organ meats are that way?

Well, her sponsor told her, she's like, oh no, no, no, no, we don't eat that as Americans. That's dog food, right? So that was 1975 in Seattle. And so it was really hard to source because that was dog food, right? And so—

And that is the truth of why so many people don't get organ meats is because historically it was seen as, yeah, poor people's food or gross and, yeah, not for human consumption, even though It's always been consumed by humans. It's just, it was seen mostly, it was a classist thing, you know, it was like really seen as poor people's food.

And honestly, if you look at even now that we have our farm, right, when one of our animals gets attacked, what do the, the, what does the predator go after first? It's the organ meats and it's the most nutrient dense. They know what to do. They let the actual, the muscle meat rot for a while. Before they eat it. It's very interesting. And here we are giving the most nutritious parts of our food over to our dogs because of, I don't know if that is from, you know, the American culture. I don't know if it's from marketing, right? And, and it's actually the most economical cuts of your meat. So.

It's so fascinating just to go slightly back to the Honoring traditions versus feeling shame from them. You know, it just affects me so deeply because those were the communities I was around, first of all. And I didn't get it either, obviously. I don't think I shamed it because I don't think I was one of those people like, ew, I didn't do that at all. I really cared for this, my friend An, and many of my friends there. I truly liked him a lot. He was a very important person in my life, and I, I definitely remember recognizing this, the strong smells, but I, I don't remember ever shaming him or making him feel weird about it. I don't think, and I hope not. And sadly, he's not in my life anymore, so I wouldn't be able to ask him. But there isn't, there is something that's coming up in me of like, why does this matter so much to me? Because I really, as the person I am now, the adult I am now, like, honoring tradition is so important to me. And clearly it is for you now as well. But I'm just questioning, is it because the American culture doesn't have as much tradition? So for me, it's like this emptiness of like, well, I don't know what to honor in my own culture. Because it's such a mishmash and it's not really respected. And I wouldn't even know where to start there. But for you, it's a clear line of like, oh no, I know exactly where to go back to honor tradition.

Oh, that's a, that's a really good point, James. I think, yes, to your point, it is very clear to me and my, like, my direct line is my mom at this point. And actually in our podcast, we just started a series on the Call to Farms podcast where we just released a podcast episode where I sat down with my mom, had the kids there and Tim, and we started asking her questions. Let's just go back from your childhood. Let's go back. And she talked about wartime. She talked about what she remembered. And it's going to be a series of just, I want to capture it because if, if, like I said, you know, if we don't, then where do we go from here? How do you, how do you plan ahead if you don't at least glean the the wisdom from our ancestors or our history. And that speaks true to American culture as well, right? Like, we have to learn from our history to see where and how to plan forward. But yeah, I think to your point, American culture does not honor our elders. And if you look through some of the comments that I've gotten just from that first podcast, episode, people have said that. They've said, we're so glad you're honoring, like, we all need to do this. We don't honor our elders enough. And it's, I don't know what it is. I blame it on the microwave. I blame it on the fact that we came out with the microwave, which then brought convenience over to the families, into each family, removed moms, removed dads, just put in like, here's the first step of like, not just technology, but replacing the family unit to make things just efficient, but not in a good way. Like our nourishment needs to be the priority. You can manage every other area of your life with technology, but not the nourishing aspects of it. And that's what the microwave did. And I like, I could go on about it so much.

Sophia, that's huge. 'Cause I'm, I'm hearing something that I've never really thought about, But like, so I used to substitute teach at one point, um, before I went down the culinary path. And I remember I, I was always like inter— kind of asking the kids, um, what they ate for the morning. I was always, already then I was really into health and just, and, and curious. And, um, I remember so many of them were eating their dinners and their breakfasts were all like burrito, microwave burritos. And I never thought of it that way, but in many ways, when we talk about being disconnected to our food, you're mirroring back like, oh no, no, there's a connection of family with food in that it was your parents who connected you to what you ate. But once the microwave came, it suddenly was the corporation that bypassed your parents. You didn't need your parents. And now you completely relied on that corporation, that food business to provide your nourishment and to basically give you the meal you're going to eat because you just throw it in the microwave and it's done. It's, it's completely unnecessary for an adult supervision. Right?

Right, exactly. And so like you asked the question, what is that? What is that tradition? How do I honor that tradition? Now, if you grew up like that, which, you know, thankfully my mom already had reservations on the microwave, but Very many, even first-generation Americans grew up with the microwave. My dad loved the microwave. Even though my mom cooked fresh food, he would still go back and microwave it. But all of that, if you grew up in that, how do you ask the questions? How did you make this? Where did this come from? You naturally just don't think about it anymore. It's just, how do I get to the next task? How do I— You know, move on to the next thing. And food, like what you, what we started with in the beginning, James, was you talking about how important it is to have intention in our food and like the making of our food. And if you remove that altogether, what do you have to work with?

Right. There's no, into your grandmother's or your, sorry, your mother's perspective or point of view as well. It's like, What's your grounding? What's your pavement? You have nowhere to drive this vehicle into the future because there's no road, right?

Right.

It's our road. Let's jump. This is such a— I love you so much, and this is such a fantastic conversation, but I want to jump to where you are now because I think what you and Tim are creating and co-creating now, your daughters, is so important for people to understand because it's connected to this. It's connected to tethering us to what is important, taking the best from the past and making sure that we carry it not only into our present, but let it lead us into our future. So can you talk about what you guys have created at this point? And I'll just start you so that you're clear on where I want you to go. But you You moved from the Bay Area to now completely changing your lives to basically living on a farm and growing your own food, make, you know, using your own animals. You're homeschooling your kids. Tim is now supporting other people in basically as a realtor in finding farms, and then you're helping them with getting the funds for it. So you've really created this more than just a homestead, you've created a family system. So can you talk about that?

Yeah, we like to call it like the home ecosystem and the home economy, essentially. But it, you know, what we talked about was how we could take all of our history, all the things that we're gifted in, And understanding, like, if we want to teach to mastery, the whole premise of us even homeschooling from the beginning was that. How do we teach to mastery and how do we know what each child's gifted in? And so that we can continue to nudge them in that direction and help support them in that way. And I think that's what our education system should be in any way, and especially now that AI is in the forefront. How can we use that to specialize education per each individual, not just child, but even adults too? I think that there's, there's really cool conversations around that. So yes, because of my background in marketing, that's been my bread and butter. I grew up with that naturally because I didn't grow up with much, right? So I always learned how to make something from nothing. And it has carried through in my marketing career and my life from, I think, osmosis, just like that's my philosophy of life. You know, when I wrote the Nourishing Asian Kitchen cookbook, I wrote that I had 3 months to write that. And on the day of launch, it already hit bestseller and then it won an award. And All because like, and ironically, when I wrote The Nourishing Asian Kitchen and when I promoted it, I really turned off my marketing brain because I didn't want any of my marketing stuff to come out to potentially be disingenuous. I wanted me, like all of my heart. This was a passion project. It had been a passion project of mine from when my daughter was born. I had thrifted all those dishes that you see in the cookbook, all the photos. I've thrifted those. And it was because of those boxes that I've collected and like moved over from California to Tennessee. That was when Tim said, you got to do something with those boxes because I've been moving them around from here to here to place to place. And you keep talking about this cookbook, Mom 75, write the cookbook or donate it, he said. And he's like, you got 2 options, but do something with it. Don't just let it sit there.

And these were all the recipes that you had written down from your, your Mother and even grandparents?

Right. So from my mom, we basically, I, when I cleaned up all my food from finding nourishing traditions, what Dr. Weston A. Price did not go to Asia. He, at that point, said, well, it wasn't indigenous enough, right? So, but I'd argue to say that there's still indigenous tribes in the mountains of Asia today. He just didn't go. He said that at that time, China and Japan was already importing goods. So, he went to every other country to find the indigenous tribes, to interview them, to find the patterns. But I took that information, and when I tried to cook the food, Mom and Dad couldn't eat it because it was not palatable for them. They said it was missing the umami flavors that's very distinctive in Asian cuisine. So, I basically then removed everything. I found Vani Hari, the Food Babe, at the same time that I found Sally Fallon. I went through all of our sauces, removed them all from the kitchen, the pantry, the refrigerator, and only replaced it with very few ingredients that I knew was safe or that we could make them from scratch ourselves.

And I said, Mom— And that is kind of the elephant in the room a little bit is, is, and I, I think it's very fascinating that I think American culture judges that Asian food is healthy. Right? We think, oh, I'm eating Asian food today. This is healthy. But Asian food, at least Americanized Asian food, is not healthy.

It is not at all. And my one bad review on Amazon was someone reviewing to say, hey, I thought you were going to have yum yum sauce in here. Yum yum sauce is not a traditional nor healthy sauce. Now I can recreate it. But it's not a traditional nor healthy sauce to begin with. I mean, you'll get that at fast food restaurants. And I think unfortunately Americans think that, well, Asian food is healthy. So if we go here and we eat Asian food, it's going to be good. But on the contrary, there's MSG and commercialized MSG, not the naturally occurring, that's completely detrimental. It's a neurotoxin. On top of that, it's addictive. It ruins our taste buds and our pituitary gland, tricking us to think that, you know, we need more, we need more of this. And, you know, we're also using seed oils and all of that is in Asian food that you go in the grocery— that, yeah, it's also in the grocery stores, but in the restaurants for sure, because they're cooking for profit. Right now, if you're making pho at Or if you're going to order pho in a restaurant, there's bouillon cubes now with MSG, like flavoring cubes that you don't even have to use beef bones or chicken bones anymore. But that's the whole purpose of making pho for your family so that you can drink the broth.

Do you think that— gosh, I never thought about this, but if you think about it, Asian cuisine, when you're in the country itself where it's not them trying to Americanize their food, but when it's authentic, okay? Traditional Asian cuisine is very simple, right? I mean, it's compli— it's, it's got lots of flavor, but I just mean it's, it's, it's, it's not— it's simple ingredients. It's, it's very like real food ingredients, right?

Yes, 100%.

And yet I think there is such a disrespect of Asians in American history, such a disrespect and such a dishonoring of their traditions, of their practices, and really that whitewashing that we talked about earlier, that for some reason Asian food here in the US is made very cheaply. So they took simple food and then they cheapened it with all these horrible ingredients to make it cheap, because I think people, Americans, expect Asian food to be cheap. Would you say that that's true?

Yes, it's completely adulterated. Asian American food is completely adulterated in American culture. Correct. And you're absolutely right. Like if we took the time, and that's why I wrote The Nourishing Asian Kitchen, it is very simple, simple ingredients. It doesn't take a lot of time, but we don't cook that way. Because we've just kind of dumbed it down, made it really bad for us, made it quick, made it for profit. But we do that to other cuisines and our own culture, our own American culture as well, unfortunately.

Yeah. It's, and then obviously we're paying the price for it as well. Yeah. What changes have you seen in not only your health, but your family's health in, in Clearly, you were raising your daughters in the Bay Area before you were on a farm. So what changes have you seen in them as you've kind of unlearned these very Americanized habits you gained while you've been here and re-embraced some tradition, but also more farming and more— mindfulness around not only ingredients, but lifestyle?

I love that they are doing life with us. They're learning alongside with us. When we butchered our very first sheep, we butchered our very first goat or chickens, they've been there. Now they're at the point where they're teaching other adults on how to butcher chicken. We just had our Homesteaders United jamboree. Back in August of last year, and they were teaching, the both of them, right? Like 12 and 8 were teaching adults how to eviscerate a chicken. And a lot of the reviews that came back, people were like, oh my gosh, your kids were there, they were doing it, and it actually encourages the adult to do it. You learn better from when it's a child teaching you than, I guess, when an adult is teaching you. And so There's that. It's having them try new food and not having them react to it like I would any other child who'd be like, oh no, I don't want to. They're open to trying things at least once. And, you know, having them alongside my mom cooking in the kitchen, they're teaching her. Just the other day, the little one taught her how to make Italian seasoning, like bulk Italian seasoning, using the herbs that we had to like mix and match together. Oh, that's so cool. Mom never did that before, yet we do that with our spice mixes. The fact that we all work together as a family, right? We were just talking about like our goal this year is to create this home economy where we learn together and thrive together. So yes, Tim is the homesteading realtor. I'm— I guess the homesteading lender. And we help people The idea is how do we replicate this? If this is something that interests you, you know, it starts at home. It really does. And take it from me, who's completely guilty of outsourcing everything. I, in the Bay Area, I had our grocery food delivered to us by 5 o'clock. You know, I tried, I invested in anything to make my life more simple and convenient, easy and convenient, right? And now— We have the garden. Nothing is as easy as going out there and harvesting your own fresh vegetables from your garden, throwing it into a stir fry, involving the kids, having them understand like they have their own business, Joy and Jolie, where they make their own salves, they make their own fuss spice mixes. Now they're creating their own pottery, right? And they're learning marketing alongside us, like using these principles of psychology and We have weekly game nights with our close friends and we get together every week and we're playing Axis and Allies, foosball, Catan, chess, poker at night. Like we always end the night with poker because, and none of this is for money. Like this is just so that you learn how to use the psychological principles. It's all game theory, right? Like, and it helps you. With calling it out. Like, if you understand marketing and propaganda, look at the billboards during 2020. Look at where they were telling us to do things, you know, even within the federal government. Like, what is the government trying to tell you? What are they trying to have you do? And literally, when we're driving through billboards and by billboards, I'll ask the girls, like, What is that company? What are they trying to sell? And what can you tell that they're trying to sell because of that? Who do they have? What pictures? What images? What colors? Like, break it down because you cannot just go through life and be fed information. You have to be able to decipher the truth and then strategize, which is why like Axes and Allies and all of these strategy games are important. Because when you know the truth and you know the direction that someone is trying to take you down, how do you strategize to work through a battlefield that's filled with mines everywhere? You've got to get through it. And so like we watched Hunger Games, they've read the books, like, and to understand like, this is unfortunately like, but fortunately this is, this is the game that, you know, with food marketing. That's so important. You know, all of those systems from the medical system, the food system, the education system, financial system, the military, it's propaganda. So you just have to understand, like, it's not just reading the labels. That's a great first step, but what are they really trying to do? And so we incorporate the children. We do have You know, the game nights, which is to make it fun. But they are learning these things because how else are you going to learn? Who else is going to— I can only show them how many billboards, but they still have to learn these, these strategies, these psychological strategies and principles too. Like, how do you call BS? Like when someone's betting a certain way, how do you know when to fold? Because that's also just as important as knowing when to bet. In fact, learning how to fold is probably the most important thing because you feel like you've already invested all this all of this money in, and then when you get to the river playing poker, right? Texas Hold'em. Sometimes the hardest thing there is knowing when to fold. When someone calls you all in, are you gonna go all in and risk losing it all? Or are you gonna be okay with, oh man, I put in like 80% of my funds, my time, my resources, but this is not the path I wanna go down, so I, I've gonna cut my losses. I would rather you learn that now as a child than as an adult in your relationships with people, your future spouse, your partner, your finances, your business partner. Like, I'd rather you learn that feeling now. And how else do I induce that?

I love that. You definitely have changed my mind of like, yeah, I'm, I wanna start incorporating poker night as well, you know? And, and it's, I'm, you're making me very excited too, cuz we, I'm gonna be interviewing a, a world-class poker player on this podcast this year. So he's a friend of mine and I can't wait to ask him these kind of questions. It all comes back to, for me, tradition. And what you're saying now, or how you're describing your life, is very interesting to me because I It's definitely not just, I can't classify it as traditionally Vietnamese. I can't classify it as traditionally American even. So what, what tradition do you think you're building now for you that you're honoring for yourself, but building, instilling in your kids?

It is definitely our unique family tradition of doing life together and building it together, right? And how all of the systems and all of the things, all of the products that we make is tied to our values. Like, our family values are so strong, like what we are going to stand for, what we're going to accept, like our boundaries, thanks to 2020, our boundaries are very clear. And it's hard lines in the sand for us. And from there, we can build. From there, we accept, you know, the things that we're gonna accept, and we're not gonna accept the things that don't work for us. But the tradition, it's— you're right, it's not traditionally Vietnamese. It's not— or Asian American or Asian. It's not traditionally American either. But it is very value-driven now than where we were back in prior to 2020, where we were more interest-based. Like, we made friends based off of like, all right, let's hang out together. What do you like to do? What are the things that you guys like to do? And sure, we would take vacations together with our friends, but in 2020, it really became clear to us and very evident that we were establishing relationships with the wrong intention. It was interest-based versus value-based. So everything that our family, like we had to get very clear on what the values were for our own family. And then now we can build off of that. And anything that's not congruent to our values can only go so far with how we want to build.

This is a beautiful way to close this, but before we do it, what is your definition of a value versus an interest? What's the difference for you?

What you are willing to die to protect is a value. And What your interest is, is very superficial. It could be like, I love going to Hawaii. I love traveling. I like long walks on the beach, right? Like those are interests. But values are, what are your diehard yeses and what are your diehard nos?

And I love that, Sophia. Now, Truly last question. And I imagine you guys face this a lot in your line of work. I would offer that your switch from the city to the farm and to this value-based living, this value-based lifestyle took a lot of courage that a lot of people are scared to embrace. So how do you support people around those fears and support them in getting over them and embracing these changes?

I hope that by hearing our story, knowing our story, and realizing that how far we've come in just a couple of years from being completely immersed in all of the systems to slowly Dismantling everything for ours. So meaning, you know, start— started from us in the kitchen with our food, right? Started 12, 13 years ago with the oldest and me making applesauce to now like making all of the meals from scratch. To when we were in a quarter acre in Walnut Creek, we started our quarter acre garden. Then we brought in the chickens to where we are now, where we raise all of our meat. It only took us a couple of years, but it has to be intentional. And yes, it is scary. We didn't know anybody going into this. So I didn't have any— I didn't have— I didn't listen to any podcast with someone telling me that they made this drastic switch from being totally immersed in the tech industry and working, climbing the corporate ladder to completely dismantling it and saying like, None of this aligns with our family values, and we've got to figure out how to do this from scratch. Nobody was talking about this 4 years ago. I actually went through some major physical challenges because of the revolution that I was having. And to now, you know, I'm one of very many stories, what, 5 years after 2020, to share that it is possible. It is scary, but you've got other people. Like myself, who can tell you that you're going to land and it's going to be okay. And if you need any help, we're here. If it's starting from cooking from scratch, how to make your first, you know, pho broth, your first nourishing broth, which I think is the most nourishing, but I'm biased. Or if you're looking for a piece of land, if you're looking for a quarter acre, if you're looking for your first home, you know, and like, All of that is something that we can definitely guide you through. So Tim and I actually hold monthly webinars. Our next webinar on like 101 for home buying, and it pertains to all different ways to like finance, to how to look for it. We're coming up with courses on how to buy land to homestead on, to homestead security. But our next webinar will be the 28th Of February. It's a Friday, last Friday of every month. We host something where we're on for a little over an hour and we walk you through the whole process. You can ask us all of your questions. A lot of people have come in from the Nourishing Asian Kitchen cookbook, have loved the story, been so inspired that we've now found people their land. And 2 of the people that we spent our holidays over with, they said it was from the cookbook that they found us. So like, It's inspiring people. And I hope that, you know, you don't feel alone because there's so many others that feel the same way. And you can start exactly where you're at, whether you're in an apartment, a condo, or if you have a small home, a quarter acre, um, to now where we're at 40 acres.

Yeah. Congratulations on that. I know that you just moved. Um, this will probably come out after February 28th. So where can people go to learn, uh, of your next, um, Online meetings and just in general to deep dive into Sophia and Tim's world?

Yes. So we have Call to Farms, which is our podcast, and Tim and I are on there weekly. And we do our monthly updates for the housing market on there. We have guests on there. Um, and then we have the series with mom that we're capturing her stories of tradition. And then I blog on sprinklewithsoil.com. We have our YouTube channel as well. So you can find us there. And if you want to reach out to tim@homesteadingrealtor.com, you can set up some time with him and go exploring.

Yeah. Wow. Sophia, thank you so much for joining. There's endless more we can talk to, so we'll just have to have you on again. Because I think the hanging question that I have that we can answer at another date is, The balance of, okay, when you emphasize home and family, but then you're putting yourself out there as a, you know, as an influencer and as someone who's helping other people balancing, like sometimes you lose sight of the family and the core values because you're traveling all the time and you're speaking and you're doing for others. And then you're not doing for your family. So I think, and I know that you guys are doubling down, like, and you realize that you were separating from that and those values were getting gray. And so you now you're getting right back to the grounding of, nope, this is about family. We're going to double down on that. And then everything else is second, third, fourth. Right. But I think that is a worthy conversation for us to have at another point because That is the, that's the rub, right? The more, the more notoriety you get, the more you lose sight with the thing that actually got you notorious. Right.

And that one I think would be good to bring Tim into the fold too, because he's definitely the COO of the company and I, it's of the family. And I'd say I'm the CMO of the family. So he does keep things organized, keeps it, keeps the balance. And if anything, he's the one that's like, raising flags like, hey, we need more time here. We need more time. That's kind of where the game nights happened because, you know, you could get lost in building all of this. But I don't like, I've seen, I spent a lot of time with influencers last year when I was traveling for the book. And so there for sure is a lack of balance. And that's when I saw that, that's not something that I want for our family. Which is why incorporating game nights and bringing other families in the fold is good to just break that up, but also learn and play. Play is so huge. Yeah.

Well, thank you. Thank you so much, Sophia. This has been fantastic learning about your home economy, your family economy, and just reminding us all that while when we have these instincts of that things feel like they're spinning out, that we have, We can co-create a grounding and asphalt to get back to zero or just get back to something that doesn't feel so chaotic. And sometimes it just starts with like starting a little garden on your balcony if you don't have a farm or like having a game night where there's no TVs, no screens, and you're just focusing on each other. So thank you. Thank you for sharing that with us. And until next time, everyone else.

Thank you.

Thank you for listening, for watching. Please share with your friends. Let us know how you like this episode. Let us know what else you'd like us to talk about. And most of all, stay curious. Thank you so much for joining me on Everyday Ancestral. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe so you don't miss the next one. You can find the show notes, links, and resources mentioned at eatpluck.com. That's E-A-T-P-L-U-C-K.com. And hey, if you know someone who'd get something out of this, share it with them too. Stay curious, live well, and keep it ancestral.