Summary:

Chef Roy Choi calls himself a “street cook.” He wants outsiders, low-riders, kids, teens, shufflers and skateboarders, to have food cooked with care, with love, with sohn maash.

"Sohn maash" is the flavors in our fingertips. It is the love and cooking talent that Korean mothers and grandmothers mix into their handmade foods. For Chef Roy Choi, food means love. It also means culture, not only of Korea where he was born, but the many cultures that make up the streets of Los Angeles, where he was raised. So remixing food from the streets, just like good music—and serving it up from a truck—is true to L.A. food culture. People smiled and talked as they waited in line. Won't you join him as he makes good food smiles?

Author and Illustrator Background:

Co-author Jacqueline Briggs Martin grew up in Maine with a big family and a farm. She's the author of four nonfiction books for kids including Snowflake Bentley, which won a Caldecott medal for its illustrations.

Co-author Jane Jo Lee started the Eaters to Readers publishing project as a way to promote food literacy and to share with kids what and how we eat. Like Chef Roy Choi, she is from South Korea. "I was born in Korea, and first came to America when I was three. I remember my mom used to make broccoli and red radish kimchi because she couldn’t find napa cabbage at the grocery store in Houston in the ’70s. I remember craving sliced cheese and mayonnaise when we moved back to Seoul, South Korea in the early ’80s. I've mostly lived between these two cultures. So for me, studying anthropology was an attempt to understand myself. And, I found food a symbolically rich, intimate, and delicious way of getting to know my own cultures as well as others.”

Illustrator Man One is better known as an LA-based graffiti artist. His work has been featured on city streets as murals, in international art galleries, as live backing art during concerts and he owns his own gallery as well. This is his first time illustrating a book and he was eager to do so because of the subject, Chef Roy Choi. "Man One's life work is about putting the power of art in the hands, hearts and minds of people all over the world. Everything Man One has done to date is about democratizing art and educating others about the unique value of graffiti art. Moving forward, Man One will continue his life's work as an artist, teacher and entrepreneur in order to empower mankind and facilitate a more beautiful, fair and just world through the power of art."