Where do you live? Where are you from?

My wife and I live on the northwest side of Chicago, in a tiny little neighborhood called Belmont Gardens. I grew up in Lake Forest, IL, but have lived in Chicago for over 20 years now. My parents immigrated from South Korea in the 1970s.

What are your career goals, how did you get into food writing originally?

I have the coolest job in the world — I'm a food writer! I'm lucky in that I get to write about everything food-related. I teach people cool facts about food, give cooking tips, report on fast food and trends, do taste tests of snacks, visit food producers, and I also get to try local restaurants and write about them too. I also have a gonzo food newsletter where I do dumb shit like cook with cat food, called Food is Stupid.

I'd always dreamed about being in some sort of food media when I was a kid, since I loved watching cooking shows. But I also loved writing. I originally got into food writing during the middle of a different career path in IT, which I knew in the long run wasn't for me — I started by freelancing small pieces for a site called Serious Eats, and once I got the hang of it, was able to write for other places like magazines. Once I had enough bylines, I was able to finally turn food writing into a full-time job, though I took some detours along the way, like working at a pizzeria as a cook.

In terms of goals, well. I guess I just try to get one thing done at a time. If I dream too big all at once, I'm one of those people who gets disappointed easily. So I chip away at small things until I realize I've gotten a lot accomplished when I look back. That makes me feel better.

I feel that! Is there a writer or two you really look up to or read consistently?

I have a dirty admission to make: I don't read many books. I am, however, constantly reading the news, along with the new stuff that my food writing peers come out with. At the moment, though, I am in absolute awe of the quality of work that all of the journalists locally and around the world are able to put out. It's sometimes hard to imagine, but things in a country across the world can and do affect you, so it's really important to keep up with current events.

Right now I'm really looking forward to reading Care and Feeding by my friend Laurie Woolever, though, which recently came out. And my buddy Jesse Valenciana just came out with a great cookbook called Birrias that I want to cook from at some point. [editor’s note: I photographed Jesse’s book!]

Favorite book?

I...don't have one!

You’ve been very supportive of this project (thanks!). What do you love about Keep it 100?

So aside from Keep It 100 being extraordinarily priced for a portrait session, it does a lot of things. Because most portrait sessions tend to be pretty posed, they just don't look natural. This style of dazzling rapid-fire photography makes it so that you don't have a choice but be yourself in front of the camera, because before you know it, time's up. The dynamic backgrounds and lighting are super cool too, because it gives you a million settings, locales, and lighting combinations all at once. And you get to keep all of those photos.

The other thing is, these photos make you look and feel cool as shit. It's not often you get to be the center of attention like that. If you've ever fantasized about looking like a musician, you can! Or a creative, an author, a model, whatever you dreamed you'd ever want to look like in front of a camera, you'll get at least a few photos that make you look that way. Everyone deserves to love the way they look in a photo, and when you get the right Keep It 100 photo, you'll be so happy you have that one picture that captures exactly how you want the world to see you. That's an extraordinary feeling. (I'll take my endorsement check any day now, thank you.)

What makes you excited to be alive?

I am surrounded by people I love.

Is there an artist you call your favorite? Why?

Anyone who draws penises in sidewalk cement. They're the true Picasso.

Do you have a dream vacation destination?

I want to go back to South Korea to visit my family. I haven't been since I was in seventh grade, and it's been so long I'm not sure any of us would recognize each other anymore. And I'm hoping for any travel to Asia in general, but for some reason I've been fantasizing about going to Southeast Asia a bunch recently. Everyone I know who's visited has always come back with such wonderful stories.

Do you have a go-to restaurant?

One of my personal projects is to go to a new place nearly every week, so having a single go-to restaurant is damn near impossible. But I'd like to challenge anyone reading this to keep going to new places. I think a good way to do it is to pick a country's cuisine you've always been curious about, look to see if there's a place near you that serves it, and just go without researching too much. (Okay, if Google says the place has two stars, I'll understand if you have hesitations.)

If I'm not familiar with the food, I just ask whoever's around for help. It could be the server, the person taking your order at the register, the owner, a fellow customer. Almost everyone will be happy to help you try something new, and oftentimes you'll make a new friend in the process.

Movie or TV show I've been obsessed with lately?

My wife and I recently played a great video game called Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. It was extremely well-produced and acted (plus it was fun as shit), so that inspired us to watch all the Indiana Jones movies from start to finish. I had never seen a few of them, and it was fascinating to see how poorly some stuff had aged, how some stuff held up really well, and how hilariously problematic Indiana Jones actually is when you think about it. He's an HR nightmare, an artifact thief, and a mass murderer. Incredible!

What's a good idea you've had but never acted on? Do you write down or save your ideas?

If I ever have a good creative idea, I try to write them down, either by texting myself or scribbling it down somewhere. I have a few ideas I've never acted on because they take too much work (weeks to years), and since I'm so busy, it's hard to commit to something on a timeframe that long. But I have a few aspirational things in my back pocket that I hope to get to someday. It's mostly a time issue.

Do you think Ai will be a net positive for society? Negative? Why?

If Ai actually worked to do anything useful at all, I might have a touch of hope for some applications, like medical breakthroughs (cancer treatment, pharmaceutical development). But the thing is, I haven't seen it do anything coherent yet aside from draw some really stupid pictures, write horribly inaccurate and dangerous pieces, or make creepy videos. There hasn't been any compelling evidence that it can do anything useful, but corporate types still somehow believe they can use it to replace human beings. If the intent is to improve people's lives, that's one thing, but as far as I can tell, the hope is to use it to make people more useless as a resource (i.e. replace their salaried positions with automation), which has malicious intent, and the product they're pushing doesn't actually work. So how does this make sense, again?

Anything you want to add or end on?

During my portrait session, I was wearing a button-up shirt, but shorts on the bottom that nobody can see. Frankly, I could have been bottomless, but you wouldn't have known based off the result. That's photo magic, baby!