Katie Chin on Reinvention, Family Secrets & Finding Her Purpose

Award-winning chef, cookbook author and television personality Katie Chin joins us for a heartfelt conversation about food, family, resilience and second acts.

Katie shares how cooking alongside her mother helped heal generations of trauma and transformed their relationship into a deep friendship. She opens up about growing up in a Chinese-American household, leaving a successful Hollywood executive career to follow her passion, surviving an emotionally abusive marriage, and why telling the truth about our stories can set us free.

We also discuss parenting, forgiveness, cultural identity, grief, and the powerful connection between food and love.

Plus, Katie brings homemade dumplings to the studio and shares simple cooking tips anyone can use.

In this episode we discuss:

• Why food was her mother's love language

• Growing up in a Chinese-American family

• Leaving Hollywood to become a chef

• Healing family trauma through cooking

• Her mother's remarkable journey from seamstress to restaurateur

• Breaking generational patterns with her own children

• Her one-woman show, Holy Shiitake! A Wok Star Is Born

• Why sharing our stories removes shame

• The healing power of traditions and recipes

• Katie's favorite pantry staples and easy cooking tips

• Homemade dumplings and the stories they tell

00:00 Introducing Katie Chin

1:20 Food as her family's love language

4:40 Leaving Hollywood and rediscovering cooking

6:20 How cooking brought Katie and her mother together

9:50 Her mother's incredible rise from seamstress to restaurant mogul

12:10 Why it's never too late to reinvent yourself

12:37 Creating her one-woman show, Holy Shiitake! A Wok Star Is Born

14:30 Growing up Asian in Minnesota and experiencing racism

15:20 Family tragedy and losing her sister to suicide

16:10 Divorce, grief and generational differences

17:30 Forgiveness and breaking family cycles

19:00 Parenting differently than she was raised

20:25 Becoming her mother on stage

23:40 Turning her story into a television series

25:20 Why vulnerability removes shame

27:50 How openness has helped others heal

29:15 Writing cookbooks and finding inspiration

30:10 Simple Chinese cooking tips

32:25 Traditional Chinese foods as medicine

34:10 Feeling connected to ancestors through cooking

35:00 Pantry essentials every home cook should have

36:15 Quick meals for busy nights

37:00 Katie's easy homemade dumpling recipe

40:45 Why dumplings make people happy

42:20 Favorite sauces and female-founded brands

44:20 Dumpling tasting in the studio

45:45 Honoring family through food

Connect with Katie Chin

Instagram: @chefkatiechin

Website: www.chefkatiechin.com

Wok Star Catering: www.wokstarcatering.com

One Woman Show: Holy Shiitake! A Wok Star Is Born

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About What She's Having

Hosted by Jennifer Cataldo and Britney Semler, What She's Having explores reinvention, wellness, relationships and the stories that shape us in the second half of life.

New episodes every Wednesday.