A chat with Kim and Hong Pham from the Ravenous Couple
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Hong and Kim Pham’s (aka ‘The Ravenous Couple’) story is as much about love as it is about food. The two met while attending school in Michigan. They dated for four years before tying the knot in August 2011. By day, the couple works in the medical field, Hong as a doctor and Kim as a dentist and by night they are cooking and writing about a pot of comforting Vietnamese fish porridge.
The Pham’s began their blog two years ago as a way to spend time together and document their culinary heritage. Kim said, “we were always calling our family members for recipes. The blog is a way for us to pass them down and share them with others.”
The recipes are centered around traditional Vietnamese home cooking, “we focus on less commonly known dishes, the ones the mainstream hasn’t heard of. You won’t find a recipe for pho on our website,” Hong said. However, they admitted to wanting to expand into other cultural areas (look out for a tapas post inspired from their honeymoon in Spain).
Working on a blog with another person can sometimes be challenging, but the Phams have a system that works. Hong is in charge of the photography and editing while Kim focuses on the cooking, recipe writing and being the hand model. Hong said ‘we use each other’s area of expertise and both put in equal effort, there is no rush to post.” The couple confessed to not having a television in their Pasadena home and Kim added “cooking dinner together and blogging about it has helped our relationship. This is our time to vent from work -- it’s supposed to be fun.”
“The Ravenous Couple” has been recognized by several large publications (including the L.A. Times), but Hong commented that “one of the most surprising and gratifying things about the blog is the letters and emails from Vietnamese Americans who reach out about what they have made and how the food brings them back to their roots and memories. We want to bring people to the dinner table together.”
When asked about future aspirations, the couple replied: “Some bloggers are concerned with getting a TV show or cookbook deal, but we are content with just the blog for now and are open to whatever comes.”
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-- Leah Rodrigues