Five-Spice Philly
How We Got Our Start
Apple operates the "Five Spice Tour of Philly's Chinatown" - cultural walking tour with dim sum tastings, and restaurant hopping tours to Philly Chinatown. As a dumpling expert, she hosts classes and competitions based on the iconic food. She has worked in City Kitchen for the dumpling making show at the Reading Terminal Market as its guest for Chinese New Year. Apple was also interviewed by “What’s Cooking” on 1060 by Hadas Kuznits, of the Philadelphia (CBS) KYW radio station about Chinese New Year. In early 2017, she was invited by the show, Travel & Adventure, to host a dumpling making show in the PA Convention Center. Apple also hosted some dumpling making workshops for local non profit organizations.
Photo Taken During One of Five-Spice Tours of Philly Chinatown/Dim Sum Tasting
Photo Taken During Dumpling Making Show for the Chinese New Year Celebration at Reading Terminal Market on Feb 4th, 2017
"Apple did such a wonderful job during our Chinese New Year celebration and was so engaging. After the fun and exciting dumpling demo for the Chinese New Year, we all thought Apple would be great person to have back for this event." - From Reading Terminal Market.
This past summer, Apple was invited by the Reading Terminal Market to participate in an important community project - The Breaking Bred, Breaking Barriers dinner project. Apple represented the Chinese community to present Chinese iconic food to other ethnic groups. More specifically, she performed a dumpling making demonstration and brought the most popular street food in China, the Chinese Crepe, to the Philly market for the first time ever.
Photo with our guests during the dumpling making demonstration in City Kitchen at Reading Terminal Market on June 5th, 2017
Apple was doing the demo for the most popular street food in China on September 13, 2017 in City Kitchen/Reading Terminal Market
The Breaking Bread, Breaking Barriers dinner project, funded by Knight Foundation, brings together individuals from different cultures to sample each other’s cuisines and learn more about each other, to see what they might have in common. The project parties include the Reading Terminal Market, HIAS-PA, Philadelphia’s Human Relations Commission and the UPENN Project for Civic Engagement.
On June 5th, Reading Terminal invited three communities – the Chinese, the Mexican, and the Mummers, to get to know one another better through this forum, by learning about each other’s culture through food. We were honored to be invited to represent the Chinese community. Each community, through a guest chef, provided an interactive cooking demonstration of one to two dishes that can be used to highlight one’s culture, history, and communal stories. They then sat down to have dinner to engage in a dialogue facilitated by the Human Relations Commission. The idea is that the participants walk away from the session with a foundational understanding of one another’s culture and history.
Photo with Mayor Jim Kearny, General Manager from Reading Terminal Market, Anuj Gupton, and community leaders from the event on June 5th, 2017
On September 14, 2017, Apple assisted Master Chef Joseph Poon from Chef Joseph Poon Creations and Events during 2nd Annual PAAFF (Philadelphia Asian Arts Film Festival) Asian Chef Experience highlighting the top Asian culinary talents in Philadelphia.
This was a special Chef tasting event with 14 of Philadelphia's most prominent Asian American & Pacific Islander Chefs preparing tasting sized portions of their best dishes.
This event serves as an important fundraising tool for 2017 Philadelphia Asian Arts Film Festival while also highlighting the incredible talent and diversity of cuisine within the local community of culinary artists.
Apple periodically offer dumpling making workshop sharing her dumpling skills with other Philadelphians and has received well deserved great reviews. Guests in particular loved the experience shopping in the local Asian market for ingredients making dumplings and many have expressed that they will recreate delicious dumplings at home.