I want to tell you something embarrassing.
As a kid, I used to poke holes in my dumplings with a fork. Not to eat them faster. Not because I didn't know any better. On purpose, strategically, so I could turn the wrapper into a little vessel for soy sauce. I was very committed to this method.
I was also a picky eater. Extremely picky. The kind of kid who would eat around green onion like it had personally wronged me. My mom tried everything. She was not successful. What she did do — lovingly, and without letting them go to waste — was eat my discarded dumpling fillings while I ate the wrappers. She let me have my thing.
When family would ask what to order for me at a restaurant, they'd say I liked dumplings. Which was half true. I liked the wrappers. And the soy sauce. And the fillings — as long as there were no vegetables in them.
My mom was born in Taiwan. She moved here when she was just a few years old, and I was born here. My dad is white. I am distinctly American — and growing up, that meant I existed somewhere between two food cultures without being fully fluent in either.
When we'd visit family in Boston, the whole world felt foreign to me there. The food my family ordered scared me. Authentic Chinese food — the real stuff, the stuff Chinese households grew up eating — felt completely out of reach. I didn't eat much. I mostly stuck to the wrappers. At least I was consistent.
Back in San Antonio, though, we had Golden Wok. And Golden Wok was my gateway drug.
It met me where I was. The dim sum carts came around, you pointed at things, and I found the one thing I could commit to: shrimp shumai. Just shrimp and wrapper — no vegetables to negotiate around. I'd dip them in their hot oil. So good. I still go there as often as I can.
My love of dumplings has expanded a lot since then. Fillings I'd have never touched as a kid — pork, shrimp and pork, chive and pork, soup dumplings, potstickers, sheng jian bao, bao. I love them all now. Chive pockets are still a little much for me. But hey — progress, not perfection.
There are so many great kinds of dumplings. Each one has its place. But I'll be honest: I think what we make is the best. The crispy bottom, chewy wrapper, soup inside. Legit crispy — not golden, not lightly browned, crispy — is the best texture combination in food.
We made dumplings at home as a family growing up too. We weren't experts. We were enthusiastic, which is different. We'd spend a whole day making them, rolling our own wrappers, lining them up on sheet pans, stacking them in the freezer in big Ziploc bags.
In the last few years, my love of dumplings hadn't diminished — it had only grown. When I'd visit during the holidays, I started asking if we could make them again. My sister was the one to humor me, showing up as the second set of hands in the kitchen every time. First shumai. Then sheng jian bao. So when my mom gave me something for Christmas recently — the dumpling folder we'd always used growing up — it made complete sense. No recipes inside. Just the folder itself, a physical record of all the times we'd made them together. She wrapped it up and put it under the tree.
That folder is Good Fold to me. Not the logo, not the packaging, not even the sheng jian bao. That folder, made with no expertise and a lot of love, is what this whole thing is.
Good Fold makes dumplings for strangers now. Hundreds of them, every weekend, at a farmers market in San Antonio. And what I've found is that almost nobody I talk to has actually made dumplings at home. But they all love them. They tell me about the restaurants they've been to, the kinds they like best, the fillings they dream about. They pitch me ideas for new ones. They are passionate about dumplings in a way that makes me feel like I've found my people.
Because here's the thing — dumplings mean something. They mean love. They mean connection. They mean family, and the specific kind of time you spend with family when you're all just making something together. Plus, they are absolutely delicious.
I'm glad to be part of that now.
Fold. Heat. Eat. Repeat.
— Jon