Chef Jet Tila Builds Community with Military Families Around the Table at USO MVP Event

By Danielle DeSimone

For many, gathering around the table is more than just sharing a meal – it’s an opportunity to take a breath, to pause amidst our busy schedules and share a moment of connection with friends or family. For the people who serve and their military families, these opportunities may be limited given their duties, deployments or distance from loved ones. That is why helping to create moments in which service members and military families can come together and connect is crucial – and in August 2024, the USO did just that alongside celebrity Chef Jet Tila.

Service Members and Military Families Cook Alongside Chef Jet Tila and the USO

Known worldwide for his appearances on The Food Network and Iron Chef America, as well as his bestselling cookbooks focused on Thai and other Asian cuisines, Chef Jet Tila is a force to be reckoned with in the kitchen. The chef, writer, TV personality, restauranteur and instructor comes from a family with a long culinary history – his Thai-Chinese family established Thai restaurants and markets in Los Angeles and throughout the rest of the United States when they immigrated here in the 1960s.

Jet brought that experience to a recent USO MVP event in which service members, military spouses and military children all around the globe tuned in live and gathered around the metaphorical table for a cooking class with the chef.

USO MVP events are a series of virtual, streamed events in which service members can interact directly with artists, entertainers, athletes, chefs and more through their computer or phone screen, and discuss everything from deployments to what it’s like on a film set.

During this particular USO MVP event, aside from individual service members and military families tuning in from their own devices, several USO Centers around the globe also hosted watch and cooking parties in which participants could cook alongside the famous chef as he taught them to prepare Spicy Basil Beef (also known as Pad Krapow) and gave plenty of expert tips on Asian cuisine from the comforts of his home kitchen. From sharing his love of minute-Jasmine rice, to talking about his kids’ favorite meals, it was a special experience for military participants to get a behind-the-scenes glimpse at one of their favorite chefs.

“It was basically an online global cooking class,” Jet said. “I picked a few things out of the cookbook, we had a great host and we made some dishes. We also checked in with different bases through different parts of the meal, and I had a great time.”

These live look-ins allowed Jet and service members to interact one-on-one throughout the cooking class and offered Jet a glimpse into USO Centers everywhere from Fort Huachuca, Arizona, to Tumon Bay, Guam. Jet also enjoyed interacting with members of the military community after the event, as they posted photos and videos of their cooking experiences.

“It was way more people than I thought it was going to be,” he said. “It was great.”

Jet was also pleasantly surprised to see that the crowd participating in the event was not just service members, but military family members as well.

“It was nice to forget everything that’s going on in the world for a few hours and break bread and hang out together,” he said.

Jet explained how food and cooking can be so much more than just what we eat – it is also directly connected to our physical and mental well-being. Much of that is because of the emotional connection to loved ones and tradition that cooking evokes, and that can be a huge benefit to military families, who may struggle to remain connected through deployments or duty stations far from their loved ones.

“I think some of our best memories are around the table, and I think by default we spend a lot of time there with family. And beyond that, I think there’s a lot of family history and culture that’s built around food, right?” Jet said.

“You cook with your mom, and you cook with your grandparents. I wonder sometimes – if it’s actually the food and the cooking, but I think it’s also the ritual of it and all the senses that are affected to create such deep memories of good and better times.”

“So, I think when we’re talking about the families of the deployed, I think [this cooking class] is a nice way to give back to them. It’s a distraction. I think that the USO and myself, we’re making time out of our day to do something in service for them.”

Why Giving Back to the Military is Important to Chef Jet Tila

Jet grew his appreciation for the U.S. military and his commitment to giving back to the people who serve while donating his time to his friend’s charity, Spike’s K9 Fund, which advocates for military and law enforcement working dogs. In his time there, Jet joined a group of passionate veterans and active-duty members of the military, bonding with them at events and learning more about their time in service.

At some of these events, Jet would volunteer his time as the chef of the day or week, cooking for this group. And it was over these meals that they truly bonded.

“Food was a big connector for a lot of people, and it was also another way to decompress and just to get a group of guys around the table. So, my connection to the military is through this really great group of dudes that I’ve been hanging out with for about a decade now.”

In becoming friends with these service members and veterans, Jet got a firsthand glimpse into the lives and sacrifices of America’s service members and has been inspired to give something in return through organizations such as the USO. He explained that USO MVP events are a way for him to personally give back to the people who serve.

“I think that it reminds me every day of their sacrifice for me and for all of us,” he said.

Many service members spend months away from home and loved ones while on deployment. And while serving far away on the front lines, it can be hard to access some of their favorite foods. This may feel like a small challenge to overcome on deployment, but after 9 months of eating at a military dining facility, service members can easily get homesick for their moms’ go-to home-cooked meal. In that moment, it’s not just the food itself that they miss – it’s the moment of connection around the table. These sacrifices were front-of-mind for Jet during his cooking class.

“It’s important that people remember we live the lives we live because of the sacrifice of our great military. I think everyone gets caught up in their day-to-day and can forget, but we are living comfortably and well here in this amazing country because of the sacrifice of the multiple generations of our military. And we forget the families that support those military members as well,” Jet said.

Jet explained that as a public figure, giving back to the military community through events like these is incredibly important.

“There’s really actually nothing more important. My celebrity is not important compared to the sacrifice of all the service members out there. So that’s why, for me and my family, anything we can do to lend a hand or make someone’s day better or to create just a little joy in their lives, it’s the least we can do,” Jet said.

It was a real privilege to be asked and to be a part of this great organization, and I hope we continue to do so.”