Taylor Holliday and Fongchong Havighurst
On these recipe pages you’ll find the inspiration and information you need to cook with the regional Chinese ingredients we import for The Mala Market. We are Taylor Holliday and Fongchong Havighurst, and our mother-daughter venture began with this blog, which we started in 2014 to document our adventures in learning to cook Sichuan food in America.
One of us joined a new family in the U.S. at age 11 and refused to eat anything but real Chinese food, and the other one had to learn in a hurry how to cook it for her. We discovered through the years that the secret to making food that tastes like it would in China is using the same ingredients that are used in China. By 2017 the two of us were traveling to China regularly to source Sichuan heritage products—most of which had never been available before in the U.S.—and share them with other home cooks (and not a few chefs) back home.
Taylor, a former arts and travel journalist (WSJ, NYT), is CEO, importer, cook and writer, and Fongchong, now a university student, is fulfillment manager, translator and chief taster. Our shared obsession with málà—Sichuan’s numbing and spicy cuisine—helped us bond as mother and daughter all those years ago and still keeps Fongchong connected to her homeland. Over the years, we’ve also invited several other women with roots in China to join us in sharing recipes from their families’ home regions.
Whether your connection to Chinese food is through your immigrant or multicultural family, world travel, or simply the love of a Chinese restaurant down the street, the mission of both our store and blog is to help you make the best Chinese of your life!
Taylor & Fongchong’s Favorite Sichuan Recipes
Beef, Lamb & Game
The Queen of Mapo Doufu Recipes (Mapo Tofu)
How to Cook With Chinese Noodles
Introducing Zajiang Noodles (Zajiangmian, 杂酱面), Chengdu’s Favorite Noodle
Deep Dive: Making Chinese Pickles and Ferments
Sichuan Lacto-Fermented Pickles (Paocai, 泡菜): Starting Your First Batch
Shop The Mala Market
Our Contributors
Georgia Freedman
Georgia Freedman has been the managing editor of The Mala Market recipe site since 2024. She is a California-based journalist, editor and cookbook author. She first visited in China in 2000, to study at Tsinghua University, then later moved to Kunming to research the foodways of Yunnan Province for her cookbook, Cooking South of the Clouds—Recipes and Stories from China’s Yunnan Province (Kyle, 2018).
Georgia’s work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Food & Wine, the Wall Street Journal, Saveur, Afar and Simply Recipes. Formerly the managing editor of Saveur, she has also edited for Afar, Epicurious, TripAdvisor and other food- and travel-focused publications and companies and has authored or co-authored four cookbooks. See Georgia’s recipes.
Kathy Yuan and Mala Mama
Kathy Yuan was the managing editor of The Mala Market recipe site from 2021 to 2023. She is a first-gen, twenty-something daughter of two Sichuan immigrants who cooked her way back to her parents’ kitchen during the pandemic and began helping Ma (you can call her Mala Mama) keep generational family recipes alive. Now based in New York, Kathy writes about both parents’ memories of growing up in Sichuan and how they’ve continued to make everything—from wind-cured meats to Sichuan chili oil to homestyle braises and soups—that reminds them of home. See Kathy’s recipes.
Zoe Yang and Iris Zhao
Zoe Yang is a Brooklyn-based writer and recipe developer. She was born, raised and culinarily trained in Nanjing, China. Iris Zhao, her mother, is a retired schoolteacher living in Boston who immigrated from Nanjing in the ’90s. Iris taught herself how to make a lot of Jiangnan classics—even the difficult ones—from scratch when she landed Stateside, and she passed that love of culinary discovery on to Zoe. Together they are sharing mother-daughter recipes from southeast China for The Mala Market. Zoe’s recipes and writing can also be found on Bon Appetit, TheKitchn.com and her personal site: zoeyijingyang.com. See Zoe’s recipes.
Xueci Cheng
Xueci Cheng is a recipe developer and culinary creative based in Berlin, Germany. Born and raised in Sichuan, she has lived in different parts of the province, including Guangyuan, Mianyang and Chengdu. After moving to Germany in 2015, she began a quest to recreate the tastes of her home. Her journey led her to become a food editor at a German cooking platform, and to found Chill Crisp, a food media project where she shares videos and newsletters that delve into Sichuan and other regional Chinese food, blending historical context, personal stories and cooking techniques. Xueci’s work can be found on her Instagram, @chill_crisp, and her newsletter: chillcrispbyxueci.substack.com. See Xueci’s recipes.
Clarissa Wei
Clarissa Wei is a Taiwanese American journalist. Her debut cookbook, Made In Taiwan (Simon Element, 2023), is a James Beard Award Finalist and a celebration of the island nation she calls home. Her writing has been published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times, Foreign Policy, BBC, National Geographic, among others. She has field-produced videos for VICE News Tonight, 60 Minutes, Vox, and SBS Dateline. She has voiced and produced audio segments for Monocle and Proof by America’s Test Kitchen. Previously, she was a senior reporter at Goldthread, a video-centric imprint of the South China Morning Post, where she traveled throughout China and filmed food and culture videos. See Clarissa’s recipes.
Michelle Zhao
Michelle Zhao contributed recipes to The Mala Market from 2020 to 2023, when she ran No Sweet Sour, an Instagram and blog-based community sharing recipes and stories from Yunnan, the southwest province where she was born and raised. Growing up in the capital city of Kunming, Michelle was exposed to many minority cuisines, including Yi, Hui (回), Dai (傣) and Bai (白), all of which she missed after moving to Norway. In 2023, Michelle brought those memories and flavors to the Norwegian city of Bergen with her very own restaurant. You can now find her @banzharestaurant. See Michelle’s recipes.
