Follow Chef Samantha Fore @tuktuklex on Instagram and Facebook for more information on Tuk Tuk’s upcoming events. Photo by Theresa Stanley
It’s been a big couple of years for local chef Samantha Fore.
Having amassed a loyal local fan base for her food since she introduced it to the Lexington public in 2016, the proprietor of the traveling culinary endeavor Tuk Tuk Sri Lankan Bites has been gaining increasing national momentum as of late, with a series of unexpected celebrity-grade boosts. Following significant local buzz surrounding the innovative South Asian cuisine she served up at pop-up dinners at Lexington bars and restaurants, in 2018, she was invited to cook a private dinner for “Top Chef” host Padma Lakshmi; that year, she was also named a “chef to watch” by Plate Magazine. Last month, she was featured as a guest chef at her first James Beard Foundation event, and in August – much to her surprise – her very own roasted curry tomato pie (can we get a resounding “yum”?) landed on the cover of Food & Wine Magazine.
Many chefs spend their entire career working toward such measures of success, so it’s worth noting that Fore has only been cooking professionally for a few years – and primarily out of home kitchens and pop-up tents, at that. Born in Lexington, she spent most of her formative years in North Carolina before moving to Boston for college and graduate school. While in Boston, she started a boutique web agency, where her primary clients included chefs and high end restaurants, and then returned to Lexington in 2012 with her husband, a fellow web designer.
“We contemplated just being here for a year, then we got here and knew it was where we were meant to make our home,” she said.
Fore soon started applying her culinary marketing experience – along with some cooking knowledge imparted from her mother, who moved to the United States from Sri Lanka in the ’70s – toward mini culinary adventures, hosting popular brunches at her house.
Those brunches soon outgrew her space, and when strangers started showing up, Fore decided it was time to find a new location to showcase her Southern spin on Sri Lankan street food. After a conversation with the owners of Arcadium Bar, who were lamenting their lack of an in-house food truck, she went out on a limb, investing in a tent and other equipment that would allow her to set up shop and sell her Sri Lankan snacks at that bar on occasion.
“I made my entire investment back the first night,” Fore recalls of that first Arcadium Bar pop-up in April 2016. “Thinking it was a fluke, I went back for a second outing and sold out with crazy numbers again. The rest has been a very beautiful history.”
Increased national media attention and a growing number of partnerships with various organizations – including “Brown in the South,” a regional dinner series designed to showcase chefs of Indian descent who are living in the American South – have taken Fore on a culinary whirlwind, with lots of travel to participate in various events around the country. This month, she generously took some time to share her recipe for Mango Curry (click here!) and to answer a few questions for us.
How did you get into cooking for Lexingtonians? I love to share food with people – having a meal together is a great way to get to know people. In Boston, we threw Derby parties, but everyone here seems to have that under control, so we started having people over for brunches. They grew a bit too large for my home, but some of the folks who were originally ‘plus ones’ have since become dear friends.
Were pop-ups your first chef events? On the cooking side, yes. I spent eight years on the other side of the culinary industry in web marketing for chefs and high end restaurants. They knew I would make snacks every once in a while, but none of us saw Tuk Tuk coming.
Landing on the cover of Food & Wine magazine was a big moment for you. Tell us about your perspective on tomato pie – a quintessential Southern dish – and how it came to make it to the cover of that magazine. It’s funny because I was not a huge tomato pie person (it’s often way too soggy for my tastes), and I’m definitely not a mayo person, but I found a combination that worked for me, and it really worked well for them. Food & Wine Magazine approached “Brown in the South” [a group that organizes a series of collaborative dinners featuring chefs of Indian descent who have made a home in American South] for recipes and chose the tomato pie idea that I’d never quite executed en masse.
Previously I’d done a pop-up at Milkwood, Edward Lee’s downtown Louisville restaurant. Glenn Dougan and Kevin Ashworth, a former and current executive chef with Edward’s restaurant group, were helping me recreate a cheese toast I’d had during my last trip to Colombo and was craving; we ended up topping it with a curry beef tartare. I figured that the cheese mixture would serve as a delicious barrier between tomato and crust, and pulled some inspiration from the turmeric black pepper biscuits I’d been working on for the crust. I love the taste of black pepper in the dough – it has a great buttery zing to it.
With Kentucky having the best summer tomatoes, it seemed like a perfect seasonal fit, and once I nailed the recipe down everything really came together beautifully. The onion topping is actually a riff on a super traditional Sri Lankan sambol, so the pie is a total marriage of my upbringing. I didn’t have any idea until right before it came out that it was going to be on the cover, and now I’m watching home cooks and chefs all around the world make a recipe I came up with in my home kitchen. It’s kind of incredible when you think about it, but that’s the power of food. My travel schedule has been super aggressive lately, but every time I walk by an airport newsstand, I see it and start giggling. It’s surreal.
If you could suggest one ingredient Southerners should add to spice rack, what would it be? Cumin! It’s got such a distinctive flavor and adds a lovely dimension to stews and ribs.
What can we look forward to with Tuk Tuk this fall? Do you have any dining opportunities (besides this recipe) Lexingtonians can add to their calendars? I’ve been able to travel more around the country, but I’ve been working with Best Friend Bar to set up dates here and there as my schedule allows — I always announce those on Facebook and Instagram. I’m hunting for the perfect building for a brick-and-mortar, but I haven’t found it just yet!