Andrew Chase's Culinary Journey in Taiwan

Renowned food editor of Homemakers/Canadian Living magazine, Andrew Chase will have a cooking session to share his recipes of Taiwanese cuisine with the public.

Started with his love for Chinese food and enthusiasm to study spoken Chinese ago, Andrew arrived in Taiwan 20 years ago.  He made close friendships with a diverse group of people, from university graduate students to manual labuorers, from mainland Peking opera fanatics to rural Taiwanese farmers. All along the way, he learned about Taiwanese and regional Chinese cooking, spending hours in the home kitchens of wonderfully good cooks and eating at every restaurant and food stall.

Andrew Chase began cooking as a child, and with an exceptional mentor: Charles Banino, executive chef of the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Paris and Boston, who was a frequent visitor in his parents’ home. Today Andrew’s kitchen philosophy is the passionate – but exquisitely simple – credo of a true food and wine lover. In Homemakers and Canadian Living magazines, Andrew strives to offer readers those fresh ideas through accessible but sophisticated internationally-inspired recipes. His goal for readers is healthy and well-rounded eating, but he also hopes to inspire them to try new ingredients, new techniques and new flavours.

A Behind the Scene Story

I was passing by an unconspicuous farmer's market in Taiwan with Andrew sometime ago, when Andrew seemed to have discovered something exciting and asked the driver to stop. Thinking he would be back quickly, feeling disappointed, I was surprised that Andrew had actually stayed for almost two hours at a place where ordinary people would finish shopping or browsing in merely 15 minutes. He was talking to the farmers about their produce and how he could best cook it. When he was leaving carrying a white bitter melon courtesy of a farmer's wife, he had already tasted some genuine Taiwan flavours. That trip to the farmer's market was the highlight of Andrew's journey to Taiwan, affording him the chance to experience the genuine beauty and flavours the island had to offer.