An accomplished chef, author of “Dac Biet: An Extra-Special Vietnamese Cookbook” (Alfred A. Knopf, 2024), a culinary instructor and a competitor on Bravo’s “Top Chef and Top Chef All-Stars,” Nini Nguyen is accustomed to running things in the kitchen.
Except when Mary Tran is around.
The chef learned to cook from Tran, her grandmother, who turns 90 in June. Tran and her late husband, Thang Nguyen, immigrated to New Orleans East with their children from Phuoc Lam in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam after the fall of Saigon. Nguyen died in 1979, leaving Tran to raise 11 children…