After their 2021 wedding, Thuy An and her husband reside in a villa in Thanh My Tay ward, Ho Chi Minh City. She utilizes the rooftop to grow vegetables and fruit trees, providing for her family's dietary needs.

The space was transformed into a small garden starting in 2023. The former beauty queen uses styrofoam and plastic containers filled with soil to grow various vegetables, including bok choy, lettuce, water spinach, jute mallow, and okra. One section of the rooftop features a trellis for climbing plants such as loofah, bitter melon, and squash.

Thuy An's family garden viewed from above. Photo: Tuan Viet

She cultivates mint, fish mint, and sawtooth coriander for salads or to accompany boiled meat. Turmeric and ginger are grown for daily beverages. The garden also features common fruit trees like lemon, kumquat, apple, acerola cherry, and sapodilla, with some bearing fruit year-round. Thuy An states that minimal care is needed, primarily regular soil replacement. She invested in an automatic irrigation system to reduce effort. To ensure clean food, she avoids growth hormones and pesticides. Often, she picks and eats fruit directly from the garden due to its safety.

According to the former beauty queen, plants thrive during the rainy season, yielding more than expected. After harvesting, she gives surplus produce to family and friends, reserving some for new plantings. At one point, Thuy An also dedicated a space to raising chickens, creating a rural setting within the city for her child to explore and understand life.

Thuy An's kitchen overlooks the garden.

In late 2025, Thuy An began filming a cooking series, utilizing ingredients from her garden. She set up a small kitchen in a Southwestern Vietnamese style, acquiring various utensils like pots, pans, bowls, chopsticks, and decorative items. Across dozens of videos shared with her audience, Thuy An prepares simple, traditional meals and Western Vietnamese specialties such as 'lau rieu' (crab noodle hotpot), 'lau mam' (fermented fish hotpot), 'banh duc' (rice cake), 'banh xeo' (sizzling cake), and various sweet dessert soups.

The former beauty queen shares that she learned to cook from a young age, making her comfortable in the kitchen. Thuy An views mastery of domestic skills as a way to nurture her marriage. She once hosted close friends, including other showbiz personalities, treating them to meals and receiving praise for her culinary talent.

Her full name is Nguyen Thuy An, 28 years old, and she gained prominence at Miss Vietnam 2018. After winning second runner-up, she pursued a showbiz career as a model, serving as a muse for many designers. In 2019, she competed in Miss Intercontinental but did not achieve a high ranking.

The beauty gave birth to her first daughter in 2023. She has since reduced her showbiz engagements, focusing primarily on her family. Her husband is 10 years her senior and lived in England for 12 years. Upon returning to Vietnam, he worked as a lecturer before taking over his family's business.

By Tan Cao

Photos, videos: Courtesy of subject