Hi everyone, it’s Thu, YouCook’s managing editor and I’d like to personally thank you for the energy, support, feedback and encouragement over the past few months as YouCook moved its headquarters to Toronto! I’m going to fill you in on my new project and also on our new team!

The new YouCook project

I am going to Vietnam and will write articles from there of featuring chefs and restaurants from Vietnam and showcasing different cooking styles and ingredients. By following YouCook through this 2 month trip, you will get a sense of foods, restaurants and places you might like to try in your trip to Vietnam or in local restaurants! You already know what kind of pictures and updates you’ll get out of my trip!

One specific goal I want to accomplish is to get material for my Quest for Yummy Banh Mi. I will be sampling all varieties of my favourite street food of all time and learning how to bake and make everything that goes into Banh Mi. I hope to produce our first YouCookBook through this experience and currently taking pre-orders through Kickstarter.

$35 will get you the PDF version and $50 will get you a hardcopy version of my book. You won’t be charged until I reach my goal of $2500 to get my first batch of the book published and shipped and I have 60 days to collect this! Please help me by pre-ordering a book or pledging whatever you can, $1 will go a long way.

I’m also going to be there to raise awareness for Vietnam social enterprises related to food such as:

• KOTO where they teach street kids how to cook, basic computer and english skills and give them a second chance at life. I’ll be sitting in on their classes and also giving a cooking demonstration of Canadian food.
• At Orphanages that OneMoreStep.ca helps collect money to deliver supplies to, I’ll be paying a visit to cook with the nuns.

Follow my adventures:

• Twitter: @QuestforYummy
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/QuestForYummy
• Blog: http://banhmi.youcook.ca
• Kickstarter: http://kck.st/fLVoFH

The new headquarters

I am very impressed with the diversity in Toronto – there are so many different communities and ethnicities and grocery stores and food! It really feels like I’m traveling to a brand new country every time I go from Chinatown to Kensington Market to Korea-town, Little Italy, Greektown, or Persian-town. Every person I meet is passionate about food and I LOVE the energy and vibe here.

YouCook’s team has grown to include very passionate and talented people that make writing, cooking and networking so fun as you can see below. Help me welcome Ming and Irene!

Also special thanks to our guest writers and photographers and friends that have been so supportive. And THANK YOU to all the chefs, small businesses, foodies, restaurants and friends who have really welcomed me back to Toronto. Especially to Jason Bangerter, Bal Arneson, Katherine Hall and Kitt Ritchie, Jerome and Cheryl Gonsalves, Darcy Higgins, Lynn Crawford who have spent time with me and really shown so much skill and passion for what you do.

YouCook has realized that our network has very diverse backgrounds (Vietnamese, Chinese, Malaysian, Korean, Indonesian, Persian, Trinidadian, Italian, Turkish, and more!) and that our interests are in digging deeper into ethnic foods, fresh local food, yummy and healthy foods. And that you, our readers, enjoy similar things. So stay tuned in the coming month for more ethnic restaurant and home recipes and chef interviews. What’s great is that we really can find authenticity right here in Toronto.

Thanks again for following YouCook and keep the comments coming in on how we can improve and cover events and topics that are actually of interest to you!