We made it!

Big Spoon Sauce Co. is now Hei Ma. This is the inaugural Hei Ma club release. *applause*

Hei Ma (黑馬) means “dark horse” in Mandarin — a symbol of unexpected strength and momentum. The response since I shared this news in early December has been incredibly encouraging! I’m so grateful to see how deeply it’s resonating with this community. It really feels like the right name for this moment. I’m grateful that you are here, and so excited to bring you along for what’s next.

2026: Year of the Fire Horse 

On the Chinese Zodiac calendar, each lunar year is defined by an animal and an element. Each sign cycles through Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water, creating a 60-year rhythm that gives each year its own personality and tone.

On January 29th, 2025, we entered the Year of the Wood Snake, a combination associated with quiet growth, strategy, and deep internal change. These are years for tending roots rather than growing branches, composting what no longer works, closing cycles, and doing the necessary behind-the-scenes work. These years can feel slow, heavy, and emotionally demanding, but transformational.

On February 17th, 2026, we move into the Year of the Fire Horse, and the timing couldn’t feel more aligned with the emergence of Hei Ma. The Horse represents independence, motion, and freedom. Fire Horse years bring bold action, creative risk-taking, and self-expression. These are years of decisiveness and embracing momentum once clarity has been earned.

I'm so curious to hear how this resonates for you. For me, this next chapter with Hei Ma is about trusting my instincts and moving confidently after a long period of reassessment and recalibration. 

I was also born in the year of the Horse, as was my father and my grandmother! There’s a lot of Horse energy in the Chan family. I’m not usually the one to make big decisions based on astrology, but sometimes the signs are too clear to ignore.

Off to the races: Giddyup

A fair warning: with this name change comes a new era of me making an unhinged number of horse references. In case it’s not obvious, I actually do not know that much about horses outside of their astrological symbolism. But here we are, so saddle up.

The club seasonal batches are a no-wrong-answers type of R&D situation and I, selfishly, wanted a fun project to distract from the deep IT troubleshooting that the rebrand has required. The inspiration behind this one is: cookies. All of the food media outlets are talking about holiday cookies this time of year, and I wanted in. 

(Want in on the Giddyup? This recipe is available exclusively for members of our seasonal chili crisp club! Order yourself a club shipment here.)

My goal was to develop a recipe with the same reliable crunch, texture, and flavor of the rest of our lineup, but one that could swing sweet as easily as it could savory. We did it! This batch is full of crispy buckwheat groats for extra nuttiness and toastiness, extra cinnamon and green cardamom, black and white sesame seeds, and some orange peel for good luck (I’ll be working this into my Lunar New Year menu). It smells like Christmas in the kitchen. It’s a simmer pot-worthy recipe.

About the peppers

This season, I was gifted a generous wheelbarrow’s worth of peak-season hot Korean chiles from Kristyn Leach of Gohyang Seed Campus in Sebastopol. Kristyn is a farmer and seed preservation expert, well known for her work breeding rare and neglected Asian plant varieties. These chiles are a project of particular significance to her; she calls them gyopo peppers, named for a word that refers to Koreans living away from home.

(Click here to watch a sweet clip of footage shot on Kristyn's farm from the upcoming Cultivating Place documentary! Scott and I are both interviewed here, too.)

While this type of pepper holds deep cultural pride for many Koreans, most commercially available versions are grown from hybrid seeds bred by U.S.-owned corporations for yield and profitability. Kristyn’s gyopo peppers, by contrast, are grown from heirloom seed — selected over many seasons by Kristyn herself for flavor and resilience to our Sonoma County climate.

The second featured pepper in this blend is the Chinese lantern pepper, grown by Scott Chang-Fleeman. Scott most recently owned and operated Shao Shan Farms, where he grew organic Asian heritage varieties for local chefs. He originally planted hybrid seeds sourced from Guizhou province in China and is now actively selecting seed for future crops, prioritizing flavor and form– specifically, that iconic Chinese lantern shape! These peppers are sweet and bright with a medium heat.

 

I think often about how food is a universal language. I do sometimes feel guilty for not speaking fluent Cantonese. However, I am fluent in the language of food, hospitality, and cooking. Running a food business has allowed me to learn about and share my Chinese culture in a way that feels authentic to me, and it has rewarded me with community.

Both Kristyn and Scott are farmers who have explored their Asian heritage through growing food. Collaborating with the two of them on the first recipe of the Hei Ma era is a real gift.

Featured recipe

Do you remember the gochuchang caramel swirl cookies that went viral a few years ago? I’ll admit, the popularity of that cookie, developed by Eric Kim of New York Times Cooking, is what got me on this train of thought. Kristyn’s gyopo peppers trace back to a region of Korea known for its gochujang, and that connection sparked the idea to explore a similar sweet-heat moment here.

But baker I am not. Fortunately, my favorite cookie makers, Ursule and Karl of Zweibel’s, were up to the task of playing with the Giddyup sauce to make a crispy, buttery, slightly spicy snickerdoodle. A GIDDYDOODLE. I’m not crying, you’re crying.

Thank you very much to Zweibels for contributing this season’s recipe! Ursule and Karl make a damn good cookie, but they also do a 10/10 croissant, savory hand pie, and bagel too. You can find them at the farmer’s market throughout the year in Healdsburg and Sebastopol. Follow them on Instagram to see where they’ll be popping up! 

The Giddydoodle 

Makes 12 large Giddydoodles!

Ingredients:

• 12 T butter, at room temp
• 1 ½ C sugar
• 1 egg
• 4 T water
• 1 t vanilla extract
• 2 ¼ c flour
• ½ t baking soda 
• 4 T Hei Ma Giddyup chili crisp

For dusting:

• ¼ c sugar
• 1 ½ T cinnamon
  

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar for 4-5 minutes until light and fluffy. Scrape the sides of the bowl and add the egg, water, and vanilla. Cream for 1-2 minutes longer.

3. Add the flour and baking soda and still until just combined. 

4. Now add your chili crisp and stir a few more times to distribute throughout the dough.

5. In a small bowl, stir together sugar and cinnamon.

6. Roll dough into small balls until round and smooth. Drop into the cinnamon-sugar mixture and coat well. Using a spoon, coat for a second time, ensuring the cookie balls are completely covered. 

7. Place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Bake for 9 minutes, rotate once halfway through if your oven bakes unevenly. Let cool for several minutes on the baking sheet before removing from the pan.

Tip: To make flatter snickerdoodles, press down in the center of the ball before placing in the oven. This helps to keep them from puffing up in the middle.