Most aspiring chefs break into the biz washing dishes in bustling restaurant kitchens, but for Vinh Nguyen, that education began at home.

“My family and I made friends with everybody, mostly because of my mom’s cooking,” Vinh said during a recent phone interview. “My mom would make food and bring it over unabashedly to neighbors’ houses, so being the youngest one, I always followed her in the kitchen like I was her baby sous chef.”

Before arriving in America, Nguyen’s family fled the Vietnam War in 1969 and arrived at an international refugee camp. His family stayed there for 11 months before being sponsored to America, and during that period, his mother gave birth to him.

They arrived in Clayton, Alabama, first, where they lived with a Presbyterian community before moving to Californ

See Full Page