Honor Roll

By Naperville Magazine
Appears in the January 2026 issue.

By Peter Gianopulos

These Laos-style egg rolls are part of a family’s legacy

It took decades for Naperville resident Lisa Kapryan to realize that most people aren’t as dedicated to the craft of properly wrapping their egg rolls as she is. Her vegan Laos-style rolls—sold at area farmers’ markets and through her website, malysfoods.com—are wrapped with such speed and precision it would make a Cuban cigar roller blush.

First, the fillings: cabbage, onions, carrots, green mung bean noodles, and black fungus mushrooms. Then she attacks her wrapper like Chopin at the piano. She crimps. Pats. Folds. Rolls. And tucks. “You have to use all 10 fingers at the same time,” says Kapryan, who learned the technique sitting at the foot of the master: her mother, Maly.

Then into the fryer they go.

The results are perfection: No moisture. No sogginess. Just a delicious splintering crunch, buoyed by an unexpected forest-floor blast of umami thanks to the mushrooms.

In recent years, her rolls have achieved exalted status across the western suburbs. Some fans are so hooked they’ve asked her to make last-minute drop-offs in unlikely locations: A Naperville Walgreen’s. A sidewalk outside the local Denny’s. Even the DuPage Children’s Museum. “I have to be honest,” says Kapryan, who freezes her egg rolls for easy transport. “I never thought I’d be dealing egg rolls in suburban parking lots.”

Good luck finding an egg roll with a more heart-wrenching backstory. In the 1970s, Maly fled war-torn Laos with a baby (Lisa) on one shoulder and a toddler (Sally) in tow. She crossed rivers, navigated forests, and survived refugee camps, before a local Christian church helped her settle here.

Maly brought little with her, except her mom’s egg roll recipe. But she used it to her advantage. One day, on a lark, Maly handed out some of her rolls at work. A few bites later, her coworkers were offering to buy more right there on the factory floor.

Flash forward to 2017. With Maly debilitated by a stroke and heart issues and Lisa’s dad struggling to take care of her, Lisa stepped in as a full-time caregiver. For years, Lisa juggled different professional pursuits while caring for her mom, until she recalled her mom’s egg roll drop-off. That led, in 2022, to the launch of Maly’s Foods and her egg rolls operation.

Now, Kapryan says she can hardly keep up with demand. She dreams of renting a commercial kitchen to showcase other Laotian delicacies. But there’s no time. And it’s expensive. Besides, could she ever find someone capable of wrapping her rolls the way the Kapryan family does?

“All I know is that my family owes their lives to my mom,” Kapryan says. “Whenever I get tired of wrapping egg rolls, I think about how hard my parents work, and I say to myself, ‘Lisa, you can get off the couch.’ She’s very strong-willed; she’s a survivor.”

Photos: Lisa Kapryan