‘Crazy Rich Asians' star Awkwafina learns to cook to revive her family's Queens restaurant – NBC New York

‘Crazy Rich Asians’ star Awkwafina learns to cook to revive her family’s Queens restaurant  NBC New York

Her new Apple TV series, “Awkwafina: The Unlikely Cook,” follows her journey from a novice cook to opening her own restaurant. Awkwafina was feeling under the weather recently and decided she was going to make soup. And that startled her because she hasn't always been the kind of person who made soup. “If I had told myself like a year or so ago that I would be looking at ingredients to make a soup, that would be like insane,” she says, laughing. “Like, a soup? ‘Hell, no, it’s just a hot liquid.’” The actor-comedian-rapper's 180-degree shift is largely thanks to her latest project: Putting together a menu and finding a location and staff to open her own restaurant.

The eight-episode Apple TV series “Awkwafina: The Unlikely Cook” premiering Friday follows her journey, from learning to make stir-fry at the Culinary Institute of America to waitressing in downtown L.A. Along the way, she turned herself into a pretty good cook. “I have these friends that are cooking up all kinds of stuff all the time. And I always felt like I was never going to be really a member of that club,” she says. “But it’s so accessible. It really is a world that you can step into anytime. No one’s going to tell you that you can’t do it or