What do an Asian father, a Jewish mother, a Juilliard School degree in classical percussion, and life on a sugar beet farm add up to? A popular cooking show on the Food Network, of course! Author, blogger, and star of the hit television cooking show Girl Meets Farm, Molly Yeh, will share her unique path to fame with a worldwide online audience at RootsTech 2022 (March 3–5, 2022). Register for RootsTech 2022 for free.
Molly grew up in the Chicago suburbs in a home filled with good food and good music, and encouragement to be creative in both the musical and culinary arts. She recalls the delightful sounds of her father, a professional musician with the Chicago Symphony, practicing his clarinet, as well as the delicious smells of her mother’s cooking. She says she knew early on her musical calling in life was percussion—“hitting stuff,” as she describes it. She tells how she would sit on the kitchen floor playing the pots and pans as if they were drums while her mother, a former chocolatier, turned out tasty meals and treats.
When she went away to New York to study music at the famed Juilliard School, she took her love of food and her drive to create with her. That passion soon evolved into a blog, My Name Is Yeh, where she would share creative recipes combining flavors from her diverse heritage.
“As a classical percussionist, there are a lot of rehearsals for an orchestra where you're sitting in the back waiting for your one cymbal crash or your one triangle note,” she said. “And a lot of other percussionists take that time to study what else is going on in the orchestra, and what else is happening in the music. But for me, I was like, sitting back there dreaming about cupcakes and bagels and how to make really good red velvet cake.”
While she still considers herself a musician, her love of food and cooking eventually led her to turn her blogging hobby into a full-time job. One thing led to another, and soon she was an Instagram celebrity and published author. It was at the launch of her first book where she met executives from the Food Network who saw her potential as a television personality. And the rest, as they say, is now part of her family history.
And speaking of family, it was husband Nick, himself a Juilliard-trained trombonist, whose generations-deep roots on a sugar beet farm on the North Dakota and Minnesota border helped put the “farm” in his wife’s identity as the star of Girl Meets Farm. After 6 years in New York City, the couple opted for a quieter life in the small town of East Grand Forks, Minnesota, where the program is filmed, and where they now are raising daughter Bernadette “Bernie” and preparing to welcome a second child.
To enjoy more of Molly’s fascinating story, and the rest of the free, online RootsTech 2022 event, register today at RootsTech.org.