Filipino chef and cultural storyteller Chef Tatung Sarthou will release a new book this April during Filipino Food Month, presenting a fresh perspective on the Filipino kitchen—not simply as a place where meals are cooked, but as a quiet source of life philosophy.

Titled KitchiZen: The Simpol Art of Kasapatan, the book explores how everyday Filipino kitchen practices carry lessons about balance, patience, generosity, and the deeper meaning of enough.

For more than a decade, Chef Tatung Sarthou has been one of the country’s most recognizable voices in Filipino food through Simpol, the widely followed cooking platform that has reached millions of viewers across digital media. What began as a simple cooking show gradually grew into a broader conversation about Filipino culture, community, and everyday life.

With KitchiZen, Sarthou expands that conversation beyond recipes.

Part cultural reflection and part philosophical exploration, the book argues that the Filipino kitchen has long served as a quiet classroom where life lessons are practiced daily—through cooking, sharing meals, and caring for others.

“For many Filipinos, the kitchen is where life is first understood,” Sarthou writes. “It teaches you patience, restraint, and generosity. It teaches you rhythm. Those lessons reach far beyond food.”

Drawing from personal experience, culinary practice, and Filipino cultural traditions, KitchiZen introduces readers to key ideas embedded in Filipino life such as loob (inner self), kapwa (shared identity), and kasapatan—the wisdom of recognizing when something is already enough.

Rather than presenting itself as a conventional self-help manual, the book offers a distinctly Filipino way of thinking about balance and purpose. It invites readers to reconsider how everyday practices—cooking, gathering around the table, caring for family and community—can restore rhythm and meaning to modern life.

The book arrives at an important moment in the evolution of Sarthou’s work. In early 2025, he stepped back as the primary on-screen host of Simpol, allowing the platform to evolve into a broader lifestyle media community that now features writers, creators, and storytellers exploring Filipino culture from multiple perspectives.

KitchiZen builds on that transition by positioning Simpol not only as a media platform but as a worldview rooted in Filipino values of care, proportion, and community.

“This book is not about slowing the world down,” Sarthou says. “It is about remembering that Filipinos have always known how to live with rhythm. The kitchen has been teaching us that for generations.”

The April release of KitchiZen coincides with Filipino Food Month, a national celebration that highlights the country’s rich culinary heritage and growing international recognition. As global interest in Filipino cuisine continues to rise, the book adds a deeper cultural dimension to the conversation—one that looks beyond the plate and into the values that shape Filipino life.

For bookstores and cultural institutions, KitchiZen offers a distinctive addition to shelves often dominated by Western wellness titles. Positioned at the intersection of culture, philosophy, and everyday living, the book presents a Filipino perspective on balance, dignity, and the meaning of enough.

Chef Tatung Sarthou is a Filipino chef, restaurateur, author, and founder of the Simpol platform. Through his cooking shows, books, restaurants, and cultural advocacy, he has spent more than a decade helping bring Filipino food into everyday homes while encouraging deeper appreciation of the country’s culinary heritage. His work explores the intersection of food, culture, and community, and he continues to represent Filipino cuisine on both local and international stages.

KitchiZen: The Simpol Art of Kasapatan will be released in April 2026.