The Facebook bakers promoting Asian-style recipes – from mochi to miso focaccia – to combat anti-Asian hate and underrepresentation
- Seattle-based Kat Lieu started Facebook group Subtle Asian Baking in the heat of the pandemic as a means for like-minded people to share recipes and communicate
- Two years and 154,000 members later, the group has become a major platform that promotes Asian cooking and culture to the world, and combats anti-Asian hate
For 13 years, Kat Lieu worked diligently in the medical sector in the United States. After graduating in 2008 with a doctorate in physiotherapy, she pursued numerous paths – she has worked as an education manager, a college relations specialist, a recruiter, even a professor.
Her last full-time job was as a school physical therapist, a role she says contributed to a gradual burnout.
It wasn’t only the demands of the job that were stress triggers – the harrowing frequency of school shootings in the US always loomed over her.
“I would look down the hallways to see if there was someone that I had to be aware of,” she says. “I always kept my office locked.” Then came Covid-19.
In February 2020, Lieu decided to press ahead with a holiday to Tokyo despite news that Covid-19 was already spreading throughout Asia.
“In Seattle, people were buying masks to send back to China and Asia,” she says.