What does Malaysia taste like?

In this special live Merdeka and Malaysia Day episode, Chef Dr. Abang Brian gathers LITE Breakfast announcers Terry and Leah, Sheila, Ming Ho from Sunway Le Cordon Bleu Malaysia and members of the LITE community for The Great Malaysian Potluck.

Through childhood food memories, mothers’ cooking, agak-agak, audience stories and a blind Sambal Survey, they explore how Malaysians learn taste, inherit recipes and carry culture from one generation to the next.

Because Malaysia is more than a melting pot—it is a potluck, where every dish brings its own story to the table.

The Hungry Immigrant: Heart, Heritage and the Unexpected.

What if the foods we left behind could help feed our future?

Recorded during Climate Week in New York, Dr. Abang Brian speaks with Paul Newnham, CEO of the SDG2 Advocacy Hub and founder of Beans Is How, about the missing role of culture in solving hunger, nutrition and climate challenges.

They explore why immigrants sometimes abandon ancestral foods, how ingredients such as beans and lentils became associated with poverty, and whether traditional dishes can evolve without losing their identity.

From refugee communities and global food policy to dal, bean burgers and the Sambal Survey, this conversation asks us to look back at our food heritage as we build what comes next.

Because preserving culture does not have to mean rejecting change. It is not “either/or.” It can be “and.”

The Hungry Immigrant: Heart, Heritage and the Unexpected.

Jill Nguyen left Vietnam at 14 with two suitcases. Seventeen years later, she has become one of DC’s most beloved bakers.

In this episode of The Hungry Immigrant, Abang Brian sits down with Jill, the Vietnamese-born baker behind Capital Jill Baking. Jill never baked before 2020, but what began as pandemic restlessness turned into a life of sourdough, cakes, community, and a starter named Scarlett Dough Hanson.

They talk about leaving Hanoi, building a life in America, the real banh mi bread, why it is not a baguette, tamarind caramel, Milo, sambal, snail sausages, and the beautiful madness of gathering almost 300 cakes in one room.

This is a story about migration, reinvention, and how flour, water, time, and stubbornness can become a new home.