About Martin Yan: Martin Yan is a Chinese-born Hong Kong-American chef and food writer. He has hosted his award-winning PBS-TV cooking show Yan Can Cook since 1982.
Anyone that has come to America past the age of eighteen will be able to understand when I say that you can never shake your accent.
The only thing that counts is if you know how to prepare your ingredients. Even if with the best and freshest ingredients in the world, if your dish is tasteless or burnt, it's ruined.
At thirteen, when I arrived in Hong Kong after leaving China, I made a living by working in a restaurant.
I remember when I was in college, I used to watch Julia Child's cooking show during dinner and joke with my roommates about becoming a TV chef.
The hoopla, the applause, the praises have never excited me.
A lot of people don't enjoy their job, they may even hate it, but I am lucky enough to be able to make a living through my passion.
You don't have to show people how successful you are.
Chinese culture has a lot of virtues that are tremendously valuable to not only us as Asian-Americans, but also the world in general.
Because normally with Western cuisine, you'll serve vegetables separate from the meat, so kids will eat the meat and never touch the vegetables.
I can represent my culture while helping not only the Chinese-American community, but also the community at large.
I have a lot of cooking tools. In fact I have a whole drawer full of knives. Cooking tools, especially cutlery, are my toys.
Soy sauce is really a multi-purpose seasoning.
If I could only have one type of food with me, I would bring soy sauce. The reason being that if I have soy sauce, I can flavor a lot of things.
I normally don't eat junk food.
I don't like to waste anything. Any food left over from the night before is always eaten the next day.
As long as the food is well prepared and not overdone, I think it tastes good. It doesn't matter if it's Chinese, Japanese, anything.
I've never considered myself a celebrity or even part of the entertainment business. I'm a cooking teacher.
Just like if you were brought up on a farm, you would most likely carry on your father's business as a farmer; I was brought up in the kitchen and ended up becoming a chef.
The problem with a lot of Chinese is that they put up divisions between Taiwanese, Hong Kong natives, mainlanders. We are never united. I really hope that the Chinese can be more united.
Happiness is within. It has nothing to do with how much applause you get or how many people praise you. Happiness comes when you believe that you have done something truly meaningful.
