🥔 Order Up! A Conversation with Beth A. Lee, Multicultural Food Writer & Teacher, Mom, and Cookbook Author

From challah notes on an envelope to teaching her daughter to fold mandu, Beth reminds us not to wait to pass down family recipes.

Small Bites:

📖 Purchase Beth’s cookbook The Essential Jewish Baking Cookbook on Bookshop or Amazon

🔪 Must-have kitchen recommendations from Beth for making cooking with kids that much easier, including a zester and adjustable height kitchen step stool

👨‍🍳 Purchase the Kids Cook Real Food eCourse so your kids can learn how to cook and not simply follow a recipe - give them the life skills to not only survive, but thrive! Here’s a free preview from KCRF: Request a free sample lesson of the “Kids Cook Solo” program, so you can see if it’s a good fit for you and your family!

🍽️ Make Family Meal Time Easier with Peas & Hoppiness Meal Planning App from our friend registered dietitian Ann Kent. Use code ONEPOTATO30 for a 30-day trial.

🥔 One Potato is a reader-supported newsletter - paid subscribers have access to the full archive of Recipes and Specials Interviews and Community Voices for $5/month or $45/year.

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Beth A. Lee

The Jewish holiday of Passover may have just wrapped, but in Beth A. Lee’s kitchen, the flavors, memories, and rituals of Jewish food are always on the table. Beth is the voice behind OMG! Yummy, a longtime food blog where she’s chronicles her family’s multicultural table—blending Jewish, Korean, and Hawaiian traditions with her love of Middle Eastern ingredients, baking, and storytelling. Her first cookbook, The Essential Jewish Baking Cookbook, came out in 2021, and she’s currently co-authoring a second with her childhood best friend.

As we head into May—celebrated as both Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and Jewish American Heritage Month—Beth reflects on the power of dumplings, family traditions, and how her late son helped spark her path to writing about food. She shares gorgeous food photos and delicious, approachable recipes on Instagram, co-writes a newsletter on Substack about Middle Eastern ingredients, and also leads cooking classes that invite home cooks to explore heritage baking and global flavors with confidence.

Beth’s kitchen wisdom? Take shortcuts when you need to. Don’t stress over picky eaters. Expand your cooking repertoire one ingredient at a time. And don’t wait to ask a grandparent (or a parent!) how they make that recipe. From sweet rugelach to miso-marinated butterfish, Beth’s story is full of heart—and a beautiful reminder that every family tradition has to start somewhere.

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Special offers from Zingerman’s and Goldbelly:

Looking to have multicultural flavors delivered right to your door? Head on over to Zingerman’s or Goldbelly!

If you don’t have a family rugelach recipe like Beth, order a gift box of (Better than) Bubbe’s Sweet Treats Gift Box from Zingerman’s mail order — the online shop for food lovers. Want something a little more savory? Try their German Challah Bread. YUM!

Goldbelly is your destination to shop gourmet food and meal kits for delivery nationwide; to experience more of Beth’s families food heritage, shop these Hawaiian Food Gifts or Korean Meal Kits from Goldbelly.

You can also order Beth’s cookbook, The Essential Jewish Baking Cookbook: 50 Traditional Recipes for Every Occasion: Shop Now 🍽️ (Amazon)

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Beth’s husband and kids preparing rugelach

One Potato’s Order Up! Interview: How Beth weaves Jewish, Hawaiian, and Korean food traditions into a kitchen full of flavor and family history