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About

Hi, my name is Lis. Welcome to The Subversive Table!

I’m a Korean American living in Toronto. I grew up in a third space: Korean at home, American everywhere else, and never fully belonging in either.

When I started cooking, I taught myself Western food by watching Food Network and reading cookbooks. For Korean food there was only ONE option: Halmoni, my Korean grandmother.

This blog is the other option I wished I’d had. Easy, tried-and-true recipes from someone who lives in both worlds. Asian home cooking from a North American kitchen, with North American ingredients.

The name comes from a few small rebellions:

  • Everyone belongs here. Whether you grew up on this food, married into it, want to reconnect with your roots, found it abroad, or just love it.
  • No gate keeping. You don’t need to be from the motherland or 60 years old to cook and love this food. I’m a home cook figuring this out in my North American kitchen. I’ll share what works and provide helpful tips to make it work in your kitchen, too.
  • Food that’s not exactly traditional or expected. Intense flavor, not-too-sweet desserts, snacky meals, and lots of spice. I cook what I want to eat and actually crave.

The Subversive Table is where I share the food I actually cook and eat: easy, spicy, layered, and never too sweet. Korean food is the heart of it, because it’s how I connect to my culture. But I cook plenty of everything else, too. You’ll find jjigae and banchan next to kimchi queso, mochi cakes, and air fryer wings.

I call it Third Culture Food, or food from the Asian diaspora: recipes shaped by heritage, nostalgia, and the places and people I’ve loved along the way. I hope you’ll love these recipes!

Korean Bibim Guksu recipe in a bowl with egg, red cabbage, and cucumbers this recipe
Tuna (Chamchi) Kimchi Fried rice in bowl with fried egg and spoon on the side
rice bowl filled with hawaiian edamame rice
a square of chocolate mochi brownie next to more squares
seafood soondubu jjigae in korean clay pot on table

Let’s stay connected!

Follow me on social media. I love to hang out on Instagram. That’s the place where I post informal how-tos, my latest food obsession, grocery store finds, weekly dinner menus, and behind-the-scenes from the blog. You can also follow me on Pinterest, Facebook, TikTok or YouTube.

Start Here:

I live in Toronto, the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and current home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.