Grace Choi didn’t set out to become a chef, professor, or TV host. Her childhood tastes ranged from spicy Korean stews to Applebee’s chicken fingers, and her early cooking skills were limited to buttered pasta and boxed mac and cheese. But today, she’s a classically trained chef with a PhD in Food Studies, a former Food Network host, and founder of Larabee, a digital platform that teaches people how to do real-world tasks like cooking, caregiving, or lab work through simple, step-by-step interactive lessons. Grace’s journey isn’t about chasing perfection in the kitchen. It’s about embracing food as a bridge between cultures, a tool for storytelling, and a daily ritual that connects generations.
A Rich Tradition: Korean Cooking, Past and Present
At the heart of Grace’s culinary identity is Korean food, a cuisine that values depth, ritual, and balance. Traditional Korean meals often revolve around rice, soup, and a rotating assortment of banchan (small side dishes). Fermentation plays a key role, with staples like kimchi, doenjang (fermented soybean paste), and gochujang (chili paste) adding complexity and nutrition. “There’s a respect for ingredients that runs deep in Korean cooking,” Grace explains. “You can spend hours simmering a broth or fermenting cabbage because the end result is something that nourishes your body and soul.”
Unlike Western cuisine, Korean meals aren’t typically served in courses. Everything is placed on the table at once, encouraging a shared experience, something Grace tries to recreate even in her busy modern kitchen.
How Curiosity (and Yellow Pages) Sparked a Career
Grace’s culinary awakening didn’t come from cooking but from tasting. As a teenager in Northern Virginia, she and a friend would randomly pick restaurants from the Yellow Pages: Hungarian, Ethiopian, Afghan, and eat their way through unfamiliar cuisines. That open-mindedness still defines her approach today. “I didn’t start cooking until the summer before college,” she laughs. “My cousin Eugene taught me a few basics such as French toast, hollandaise, and this trashy Velveeta macaroni I still love. I just use better cheese now.” After college, she enrolled in the French Culinary Institute in New York City. With no formal experience and zero knife skills, she found herself humbled, but hooked. “I had no idea what I was doing. It was exhausting and I loved every minute of it.”
From TV Host to PhD Scholar
Grace’s career has spanned restaurant kitchens, cooking shows, and academia. She hosted Cooking with Grace on the Cooking Channel and later earned her doctorate in Food Studies from NYU, where she focused on the intersection of food, identity, and storytelling. That blend of hands-on cooking and deep cultural analysis informs everything she does today, especially with Larabee, her online platform built to teach everyday life skills through cooking and shared stories. “Food isn’t just what we eat. It’s who we are, who we come from, and what we want to pass down.”
Her Favorite Summer Dish: Roasted Corn, Tomato & Burrata Salad
These days, Grace is a mom of two, and her cooking reflects that. While she once spent full days perfecting complex recipes, such as braised short ribs from Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc, life has shifted. “I dropped those ribs on the floor the moment my guests arrived. It was tragic and hilarious,” she says. “Now, dinner might be frozen meatballs and Rao’s sauce, which still counts.” There is a reason why I’m able to give away so much lentil soup: we have an abundance of empty Rao’s jars from all the lunches and dinners my kids had linguini with marinara sauce and Wegman’s oven-baked meatballs. Despite the shortcuts, our family’s mealtimes are a point of pride. The majority of our meals are eaten at home, together, with as many whole ingredients as possible, which wouldn’t be possible without a weekly habit of menu and grocery planning. For now, the kids have time to play outside before I ring an old vintage ceramic dinner bell they gifted me a few years ago to call them inside.
For myself, I am very content eating the same things every day for months at a time. Right now, I batch cook a blend of millet and quinoa along with yamitsuki cabbage, which I’ll eat for breakfast with two soft-boiled eggs. For lunch, I’m having stir-fried green beans with tofu and shrimp. This time last year, I was eating scrambled eggs with intensely spiced braised butter beans for breakfast, and my friend Hana Asbrink’s Sesame Snap Pea Chicken Salad with a side of Trader Joe’s Italian Bomba hot pepper sauce.
She’s a big believer in the emotional value of shared meals. According to the USDA, nearly 90% of Americans still eat the majority of their meals at home. For Grace, that’s where connection is built, no matter what’s on the plate.
When the weather heats up, Grace turns to a dish that’s as vibrant as it is simple. Charred sweet corn, juicy tomatoes, soft greens, torn herbs, and creamy burrata come together in a salad that feels special but effortless. It’s such a cheerful salad with ingredients that you could source from the farmer’s market or the grocery store, or even your backyard garden.
If I have friends over, I ask one to dollop scoops of burrata over the salad with olive oil and balsamic and finish with Maldon sea salt. Involving them makes any gathering feel more convivial. “It’s great for gatherings, but we make it on random Tuesdays, too. Let someone else tear the burrata, it makes it more communal and fun.” She pairs it with grilled bread or a simple protein for a full meal that tastes like summer on a plate.
Food That Carries Culture Forward
When asked what recipe she most hopes her kids will carry on, Grace doesn’t hesitate: kkori gomtang. It’s a milky-white Korean oxtail broth that takes hours to prepare and is often used as the base for celebratory soups like dduk mandoo gook, rice cake and dumpling soup served on New Year’s Day. “There’s something sacred about making that dish the right way,” she says. “It’s slow, technical, and rooted in memory. You feel connected to your ancestors when you do it.”
That dish, like much of Korean cuisine, is layered with cultural meaning and family tradition. And it’s the kind of food that makes you remember exactly where you came from.
meet the chef
Grace Choi, PhD, is a classically trained chef, cookbook author, and former host of Cooking Channel’s short-form interstitial Cooking with Grace. She received her PhD from New York University’s Nutrition and Food Studies program, has developed and taught coursework in food and psychology, and for the past several years has been leading a digital learning platform called Larabee, focused on tactile, action-based know-how.
