Our Story

This story begins in my mother’s kitchen.

She rarely spoke about her past—not the war, not the journey across oceans, not the early days in Georgia with barely anything to her name. But she told her story through food.

A simmering pot of bún bò Huế. A skillet of cornbread, just slightly sweet. The way she folded the herbs, the way she tasted with instinct instead of recipes—these were the details that held the memory of home, both lost and remade.

I’m Hieu Huynh, the daughter of Vietnamese refugees

Rice & Grits is my love letter to my mother. For years, I worked as a journalist and senior producer at CNN, helping tell other people’s stories. But this one is mine—and hers.

Together, we’ve woven our shared history through the meals she’s made for decades, meals that reflect both where we came from and where we landed. This film is our way of honoring those who came before us, those who had to build something from nothing—and still managed to feed us with so much care.