Hetty Lui McKinnon is a Chinese Australian cook and food writer. She is the author of five bestselling cookbooks, including her genre-defining Community; Neighborhood; Family; To Asia, With Love; and, most recently, Tenderheart, which won a James Beard Award and an IACP Award in 2024. Hetty is a regular contributor to New York Times Cooking and ABC Lifestyle and writes the popular weekly newsletter To Vegetables, With Love. Born and raised in Sydney, she now resides in Brooklyn, New York.

Irene Li started a food truck called Mei Mei Street Kitchen in 2012, opened a brick and mortar restaurant in 2013, and evolved that business into Mei Mei Dumpling Company in South Boston. She spent over a decade developing Mei Mei’s ethical sourcing and fair and transparent employment practices and was recognized for this work as the youngest winner of the James Beard Leadership Award in 2022. She has worked on farms, taught in prisons, and is a graduate of Cornell University. Irene serves on the boards of Project Bread, the Independent Restaurant Coalition, The Food Project, and Spoonfuls. She recently released the sustainability cookbook Perfectly Good Food, which she co-authored with her sister.

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