The Stiletto Chef – Candice Kumai

May 12, 2011 LuvKitty 0 Comments

Candice Kumai captured our interest when she first aired on the first season of Top Chef darting around the kitchen in her stilettos, hence earning the name “stiletto chef.” Hailing from a small town in San Diego, Candice’s exotic Japanese and American heritage landed her a decade long gig as former model that later attended the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu and turned into a celebrity chef and television hostess for shows such as Lifetime’s “Cook Yourself Thin,” and TLC’s “ Home Made Simple.” Her latest projects are promoting her new cookbook for the everyday woman called “Pretty Delicious” where she shares her favorite healthy recipes to help you lose weight without sacrificing taste, and travelling around the country as spokesperson and judge for Woodbridge Wines’ program “Giving through Growing” which awards over $40,000 in grants to 4 gardening projects that give back to the community and promote healthy living and fresh produce. Candice shares with Asiance her secrets to maintaining a balanced life with an insane schedule and how she eats her way to happiness and finds support from the community.

ASIANCE: How has your Asian background influenced your style of cooking?

Candice: I didn’t even notice until I was in Culinary school in my second term. I noticed we used pickling, daikon radish, plums, and I realized I already knew about a lot of these ingredients from my mom and my cultural upbringing. When I was younger, I didn’t really listen to my mom about eating healthy, because every kid wants to rebel. I wanted to eat peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, chicken tenders. It wasn’t until later that I learned the value of what my mom taught me with soba noodles, and rice and making incredible Japanese meals that were second nature to me when I was a kid and now they obviously come out. When I’m cooking and you’ll see in my cookbook, I have mom’s gyoza, miso glazed salmon, soba noodles with edamame and these are very influential in my everyday life now.

CK_COOKING_FRESH from CEEVEE on Vimeo.

ASIANCE: What do you feel are the main differences between preparations, dishes, and ingredient selection between male & female celebrity chefs?

Candice: I think everyone has their own style and the best thing about being a chef is incorporating your own style into your cooking. Obviously everyone has a different audience as well. It’s really nice to see everybody stay true to who they are and what’s in their realm of the cooking space in the world of food. It’s really inspiring to see other people cook, like I don’t know a lot about cooking Italian because I’m not Italian, but it’s really inspiring to see other people I went to school with cook in their style. It’s really cool to see everyone stick to their guns and hone in on what they know & love and also learn from each other as well.

I am inspired by other Asian women. I feel like we’re sisters. We all have the same upbringing and hard working strict Asian moms, who always taught us how to live a very good life. We need to learn to stick together. I’ve seen what we can do.

Candice Kumai

ASIANCE: How do we “cook ourselves thin”?

Candice: It’s more about making small lifestyle changes that make a big difference. You really have to take it one day at a time, be more aware of what you’re consuming every day. Look over the package and see what you’re eating. If you’re nuking up a frozen lean meal look at the package and see what ingredients are in there. It’s really about taking control over what you’re consuming and cook your own recipes and eat unprocessed foods and try to eat wholesome real foods again. I often try to do this 30 day food benefit challenge to eat unprocessed foods and people think it’s the hardest thing in the world but once you get the hang of it, it’s not difficult at all. You really have to take it very seriously. Because often times people will be diagnosed with something and sadly that’s when they make this sudden lifestyle change. Instead of having to wait for bad news, why not change your lifestyle now so you never have to see that day come. I find that breaks my heart and I never want to come to that day with my own parents or my sister. I just want everyone to be aware that everything is preventable through diet and all you have to do is make conscious changes to your everyday life. Be aware of consumption of processed foods or high corn syrup and tons of chemicals and processed ingredients can lead to health issues down the line. If you’re responsible for your family’s diet and nutrition why not take care of that and not only cook yourself thin, but why not cook yourself happy and healthy, and the same for your family. Everyone has to be aware of where their food is coming from that’s really where we’re at now. People tend to be really confused and lazy. I’ve come to the conclusion that it has to because I grew up with a really healthy Japanese mom and for years I shot episodes with families across the US. I’ve slowly found where the missing links are, and a lot of them are in sheer laziness and confusion and so I’ve come to the conclusion that if I make it fun and engaging for people to want to make these lifestyle changes, then sometimes they listen. That’s the purpose of Pretty Delicious to get people’s attention where they can still live this fab life and still have a healthy lifestyle.

ASIANCE: How has your modeling background shaped your diet and recipes?

Candice: It’s a great question because a lot of people want to know what models eat. When I was modeling full time I didn’t really eat anything except frappuccinos, diet coke, maybe a handful of nuts but now that I know what proper nutrition is and being a fit model for over a decade, people tend to be inspired by how I stayed the same size for over 10 years. Eat everything in moderation. It’s being aware, and keeping it balanced. I do exercise 4-5 times per week. If I can’t exercise one day I won’t eat as much or will exercise longer the next day. I just have to be aware of how to balance it out. In my book I mention a lot of “foods with benefits”. There is a chart and that is how I can keep myself on tract, I won’t consume anything that won’t benefit my body. I taught people to hone in on these “FWB’s.” Like if you eat a bag of chips, what are you going to get out of it? You won’t feel very vibrant or healthy but if you ate some trail mix or Swiss chard that has nutrients in it, you’re going to feel a lot happier. That saying ‘you are what you eat’, I always think about. I want to be vibrant, fresh, lean, and those are the things I think about every day.

ASIANCE: What projects are you working on?

Candice: I am writing a bunch of recipes for different lifestyle publications. I have a new TV show in development, and I try to work on different TV shows that can make positive changes in people’s lives. I see a much more philanthropic side of myself. Also, I am the spokesperson for Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi Giving Through Growing program, which will be providing four grants totaling $40,000 to individuals with an idea for a community garden project. It’s free to apply, the deadline is May 22 and the website is: http://garden.robertmondavi.com/
My blog is www.stilettochef.com where people can log in to see what I’m up to.

ASIANCE: Tell me a bit about your new book.

Candice: When I was on Cook Yourself Thin on Lifetime that’s what inspired me to do this book. All the women on the show were losing weight and getting healthy. They made me see that there was so much more than being a TV food host. They inspired me to become a better host by helping others to change their life which is not just cooking and hosting but helping people to change their lives.

Candice’s Paella

ASIANCE: What are your favorite recipes in the book?

Candice: The crab cakes, the strawberry and walnut spinach salad. It’s a naturally fat free dressing. There’s a great balance between sweet, savory, and crunch. I think people need to know how to make great food at home. You shouldn’t just need to dine out to get wonderful food. You should be able to get 5-6 great meals at home. You can change your life without a crazy diet plan. You just have to eat better food and make better choices. The book is sort of a best friend category_ide to getting healthy and starting to cook again. I couldn’t have done this without sweets. I’m a huge fan of anything chocolate. We only use dark chocolate. It helps with anti aging and has anti oxidants. The pecan banana chocolate cookies are one of the favorites. Bananas are a great way to add moisture instead of using butter.

ASIANCE: Who has been your biggest inspiration?

Candice: I am inspired by other Asian women. I have my mom’s friends. I have many Vietnamese, Chinese and Filipino friends. I feel like we’re sisters. We all have the same upbringing and hard working strict Asian moms, who always taught us how to live a very good life. They taught you to always take pride in what you do, I learned that we all need to support each other in what we do. I love that I can share this book and the cooking that my mother taught me with other Asian women as well. We need to learn to stick together. I’ve seen what we can do. I think it’s magical when we can all come together, and man we are some smart girls. I’m very proud to be half Asian, and I hope that other Asian women can be inspired by me and we can all help each other to learn and support each other in our community. My parents are great examples of altruistic and loyal people. When you’re growing up, you’re really blind to how wonderful and supportive your parents are. They inspired us to do great things with our lives, even though when I was young, I hated some of the things my mom made me do like extra homework.