Doris Hồ-Kane

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐘𝐎𝐑𝐊 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒 It’s official. After almost 21 years since I moved to NYC, I’m a New Yorker—in print. The Metro section. What a dream. In 3rd grade, I wrote in my Language notebook that I would invent braces that played music, and that The New York Times would write about future orthotist me. I never pursued orthotic arts, but here we are. Thank you to my best friend and partner @markhokane and our children who are always up for any and all shenanigans dreamt up by their very Sagittarius mom. I know it’s not easy. Our Sunday routine is fun and tiring and ordinary and strange—never boring and always full of love. What a joy to be photographed by the singular @heathersten . It was deeply meaningful for me to be seen through the lens of a fellow Việt woman. Your work is inimitable. Thank you for seeing us. Thank you @lanikaps for our conversation, your words, truly seeing the heart of Bạn Bè, and sharing the good vibes in a lightsome way. (And in THE NEW YORK TIMES, no less!) Bạn Bè as art project as therapy as experiment as representation as nourishment—as a reflection. Cảm ơn, friends, old and new, for believing in this bakery and the person behind it ♥️

WHAT A THRILL TO WRITE ABOUT THIS VERY GOOD LOOKING AND TALENTED CREW OF HUMANS for @tmagazine ! My first byline — but not my last, thank goodness — for @nytimes . I was going to wait until it was in print (Sept. 7th) to share, but I’ll just post it again then. Haha! Infinite love to this very special group of chefs who are leading with so much heart, strength, and truth. Cảm ơn nhiều for chatting with me and sharing your stories! ♡ @anco.banquet by @thubuser ♡ @banh.anhem by @nhu_ton and John Nguyen ♡ @bebep.babykitchen by @phobebe ♡ @has_dac_biet by Anthony Ha and Sadie Mae Burns ♡ @mam.nyc by Nhung Dao and @jeraldhead ♡ @sensaigon.nyc by An Nguyễn Hawks and Erik Dornbush Hawks ♡ @xin__moi by @glamwithtrish and Gùi Trang Nguyễn Thank you to my rad editor Jenny Comita and best research team Dacus Thompson and John Cochran. I ♡ writing. Contact me if I’m a good fit for anything and everything ◡̈ Link in profile to read! Photo by @livingstonjenny (who also shoots all of the @cherrybombe covers!)

Oh, these beautiful handpainted letters. It pained me to scrape them off. I struggled but swiftly gave into the impermanence of it all. “…transient, evanescent, inconstant.” All things come into being, and all things dissolve. Without exception. My youngest, here at the end of this video with me, was only 1-year-old when I moved into 187. I was still wearing her in a sling—wrapped tightly, tied twice, double-secured, check to make sure again, and again. I was still nursing her in one of the most intense cluster feeding phases of her/my life. What a f-cking time to embark on this sweet adventure with three kids under the age of 6. After over five years of running this bakery, art practice, catering studio, classroom, thing-a-ma-bob, I am letting go, allowing the contours to slack and re-form new shapes. Blobby, squiggly, zig-zaggy. Congruence and symmetry, let it be forgotten. I’m still Bạn Bè :) Although I won’t be offering my food to the public for now, I continue to work with a small but mighty fine roster of clients and friends. Bạn Bè as an amorphous bakery concept written down in a croquis sketchbook during my days at FIT: June 2003. Bạn Bè as planned, solidified, but suddenly derailed: Nov. 2019. Bạn Bè as a physical space, a breathing being, many heartbeats: Nov. 30, 2020–Jan. 31, 2026. Bạn Bè as-is: forever and ever; mãi mãi. Thank you to every single person (and puppy!) who has walked up to this li’l window in Carroll Gardens and gave it a chance. Strangers who became dear friends. Friends who became family. I love you. As for this online space, I will still be updating here but it’ll look a little different. You should stay. Love, Doris Film by my love @markhokane who has borne witness to almost 25 years of our shenanigans and my constant leaps of faith and unshakable, outrageously foolish optimism. Thank you.

In an old interview, I was asked, “What is the hardest part of running a bakery?” My answer was, “Being a mom and running a bakery.” ❤️❤️❤️ 1. March 2021 2. February 2026

04/18/26 | AN UPDATE ON BƯU BẠN BÈ Hi, everyone! Last week, I sneakily posted to stories bưu bạn bè sign-ups and decided to delete it after a couple of hours because the response was more than I had anticipated. I am floored by the love and support, but I promised myself that I would not dive into something again that immediately felt unmanageable (unhealthy!) for one person. i.e. the butter cookie tins of 2020 = way too much (thank you!!) but it was also a very different time. I thought bưu bạn bè could be a sustainable side project (never-ending side projects lol), but my Sagittarius brain and heart miscalculates dreams sometimes ;) Anyway, I didn’t want to leave y’all in suspense! After this first round of bưu (which I’ve closed), it is on pause. So what is bưu bạn bè? An art experiment in correspondence (zine!), connection (pen pals!), and cookies (always!). Consider b.b.b. limited edition. Archive everything but the perishables! Thank you for understanding and for still loving ban be so much <3 I hope that with what comes next (!!!), you’re here and as up for it as I am! xoxo Doris 1. Photo of me working on the o.g. b.b. by @markhokane , 2005 2.–6. Night sky through portal, 2026

☆ say hey to bưu bạn bè! ☆ coming soon! (sign collaged and made by hands, mine ☺︎)

𝗦𝗢𝗟𝗗! 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗸 𝘆𝗼𝘂!! “This [ice cream] machine has been good to me…” Omg it hit 65° today. Time to make ice cream :) The best Musso Lussino ice cream/gelato/sorbet/frozen yogurt machine! Spins 1.5 QTs with a selt-contained freezer compressor so it’s heavier (~38 lbs). Made in Italy. It’s the usual apartment level voltage (110) so it can just plug into your kitchen wall outlet. Currently sells for $800, but I’m parting with mine for $500 OBO. I’ve already sold one and am finally letting go of the other. Look at all the amazing ice cream it’s made! From my signature durian custard ice cream for our pop-up with @ocean_vuong and cà phê cookie dough to never ending @natashapickowicz ’s strawberry sorbet and spruce tip and adzuki bean ice creams! Be ready to pick up in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn! For serious inquiries, please DM. Thank you <3 If it doesn’t sell, you’ll find my kids setting up an ice cream stand this summer lol. This slideshow made me miss everything!

Common childhood kitchen scenes: My sisters and I assisting Mẹ by rolling glutinous rice balls for chè trôi nước, inserting a single peanut into every other 3cm sphere. Neat globs of sweetened mung bean tucked inside palm-sized flattened discs of dough for the big chewy ones. Bà Ngoại shaping elegant swans (bánh su thiên nga) out of choux dough. Mẹ dicing water chestnuts into tiny cubes (Brunoise?), rolling them in tapioca starch, and then into a vat of red food coloring to boil for chè sương sa hạt lựu. Chè and bánh, always an assortment and forever in abundance! You know what was not common in our home? Baking chocolate chip cookies! CCC were mostly store-bought, Chips Ahoy or Albertson’s private label, or as a post-shopping treat at the mall from Mrs. Field’s and Great American Cookie. When we did bake CCC, they were strictly from a log of ready-to-bake Pillsbury. It wasn’t until I worked in pastry dungeons as an adult that I would regularly mix CCC dough from scratch. Today, not patient enough for pan-banging or browning butter, I came up with these cookies which are vegan: thicker, with a strong, crisp surface and squishy interior. I think Peter from (the late) Whole Earth Bakery would approve :) Also, a rare wintertime photo without a beanie because this warm-up better be real spring and not fake spring!! Hope you are eating cookies in anticipation, too.

These days, in-between writing, I bake. There was a time when non-stop baking was what I needed to take a break from. Novel movements became guarded and deeply ingrained. The body does not forget. But now it feels like a practice rather than practicing, no longer scrambling to produce, or questioning the yeses and nos. These galaxy butter cookies for my kid’s classmates are basically the signature bạn bè cookie tin all smushed together. We can destroy only as creators, or something like that? Maybe I should have named them cosmic existentialism cookies lol. TL;DR: cute cookies!!!

Bánh chưng (b. 14th century by Lang Liêu, a prince of the 6th Hùng Dynasty) are like little love letters; parcels filled with so much heart. Not my best wrapping work but it’s what inside that counts?! :) The simplicity of a mung bean paste interior—heavy on the shallots, extra heavy on the coarse black pepper—hits like a big ol’ sniff kiss from grandma. In our family, we ate bánh tét growing up, my bà ngoại slicing the cylindrical rolls of sticky rice with a piece of giang string held between her teeth and wrapped around her middle and pointer fingers. I’m not so brave so I just use butcher’s twine and hands to split and share. String cutting avoids the absolute sticky mess that stays on any surface that touches the bánh. Thank you to dear @diepette of @thebanhchungcollective for introducing this practice into my life five years ago! She resurrected what already lives in this body. A delicate bondage of ancestral knowledge and joy.

Chúc mừng năm mới ♡ Happy fiery horse year! The internet also told me that it’s a good year for Sags. Kept Tết (mostly) stress-free this time around. Homemade bánh chưng, dưa chua, mứt tết, fruit, pink flowers, pretty lì xì, a warm home, my li’l family. A classic for dessert: bánh khoai mì nướng gussied up with a dusting of sweetness and sprinkles for luck, as requested by my 6-year-old. Sharing because most of you do follow me for Vietnamese dessert content ;)

Some things last a long time ♡ 1. Valentine, 2002 2. Valentine, 2026