A book of Vietnamese cooking, techniques and stories, told from the perspective of Thi Le, the best regarded voice in this space in Australia today.

Thi widens the lens on Vietnamese cooking, showing readers how its many influences (beyond the French to include China and India, particularly through spice) have rendered a cuisine that is complex, joyful, and layered.

The narrative is interwoven with Thi's compelling personal story: her mother's collaboration with the US during the Vietnam War; Thi's birth in a Malaysian refugee camp; growing up in outer western Sydney where trauma shaped her early and teen years, and her eventual connection with the rigor and routine of professional kitchens in Sydney and Melbourne into adulthood.