With Warm Welcome

Have you ever seen something and thought, ”I’d love to be involved with that!” For me WWW was it.

With Warm Welcome focuses on building community one city at a time. As written beautifully on their site they ”amplifying Asain American faces and voices in hospitality - we provide a platform for emerging and established chefs, restaurant, and founders to find collective community and to showcase their singular story.“

Founder, Arnold Byun travels city to city with Photographer Ben Hon and Art Director Seohui Chi to highlight amazing chefs and bakers.

Starting in March 2021 in New York initially in obser of Women’s History Month and to spotlight AsIan American women evolved to include all AAP-identifying pastry chefs and bakers. Traveling to 9 cities - NY, LA, Boston, Philadelphia, DC, SF, Portland and Seattle they have celebrated 162 individuals.

Seattle was their last city of 2021 with The Pastry Project as the host. I am beyond grateful to have made their list of bakers to represent Lola’s Traveling Tea Party. Our contribution was an Ubeccino Cookie; two cakey shortbread espresso cookie sandwiched together with Ube Halaya. Think a Filipino Oreo cookie! (If you have been following me

for a while, you’ll know that I love this combination of espresso and ube).

You are told when building a business, “you’ll know when you’ve arrived”. This past year of building Lola’s Traveling Tea Party we hit some big milestones. Being a part of the With Warm Welcome Bakers Box - Seattle Vol. 9 box is a huge moment of arrival for me. To be able to share the gift of food and my culture with so many has always been a part of my mission of “Serving Happiness One Cake at a Time” or in this case One Dessert. And, to be along side so many other talented AAPI bakers that I admire made the moment even sweeter.

It was amazing to meet the WWW team and Emily of The Pastry Project. The sense of community with them, all the volunteers and other bakers really filled my heart with so much joy, love, appreciation and motivation to do more.

Click here to learn more about With Warm Welcome

The Pastry Project is an amazing social enterprise and community space. Click the link to learn more of how they provide pastry training to individuals with barriers.