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‘Food Party’ Creator Reveals Backstage Secrets

Thu Tran, in her Bed-Stuy kitchen.
Thu Tran, in her Bed-Stuy kitchen.

Thu Tran, the Brooklyn artist who created and stars in Food Party, our new favorite cooking show, isn’t as mysterious to us today as she was yesterday. Tran, it turns out, is a glassblowing instructor who lives in Bed-Stuy. But her real vocation (at least to us) is Food Party. The show, which we wrote about yesterday, is a surreal admixture of puppets, weird special effects, and, yes, cooking. Three episodes have been made over the past year and a half, and a fourth comes out this fall. Tran, who cites “Pee Wee’s Playhouse, Sesame Street, Martha Stewart, Yan Can Cook, John Woo movies, and Abba videos” as influences, says that a lot of work goes into each episode. “It took two and a half weeks just to build the sets for the last one,” says Tran. “I have a bunch of friends who help me with it. But then I needed another seven people just to work puppets.” The costs of Food Party are low, though: “it only cost me $600 to make. A lot of friends helped, and I fed them a big soup pot full of mashed potatoes and a case of beer.”

Earlier: World’s Best, Strangest Cooking Show Found on Internet

‘Food Party’ Creator Reveals Backstage Secrets