Archive for March, 2008
« Previous EntriesNixon’s Chopsticks, and Peking Duck Diplomacy
Monday, March 31st, 2008President Nixon’s chopsticks on display at the Nixon Library. Of course, his historic 1972 visit to China spurred a huge interest in Chinese food, especially Peking duck. Restaurant owners told me, with only slight exaggeration, that lines outside their restaurants formed overnight as a result of his visit. Â I actually added this photo to my […]
The deluge….just catching up.
Monday, March 31st, 2008If you’ve noticed an insane number of blog posts today (I count at least 10, which is a record), that is because I am hurrying up to catch up with all these events that I have pictures fromt (also the Nixon Library gave me an insane number of separate blog posts). I also didn’t have […]
The butt-to-seat ratio, the key to readings
Monday, March 31st, 2008I’ve discovered at my events that it’s really not about the absolute number of people who show up (though that’s important), but more, it’s about the butt-to-seat ratio in the room. See above at Skylight Bookstore in Los Angeles. There were probably only 30 seats, but then a lot of people showed up from hearing […]
Libraries versus publishers…how business models change
Monday, March 31st, 2008When I spoke at the San Francisco Public Library, the woman who arranged the event (Joan) mentioned that the book had been very popular in the Bay Area. They had ordered about 40 copies of my book and all of them were out. Plus there were 71 holds (i.e. a waiting list) on those copies, […]
Fortune cookies find their way back to Japan (and Mexico and Iraq)
Monday, March 31st, 2008Tomoko, who played an important role in the Japan section of the book (and the wardrobe advice for the book launch) sent me this email today: yesterday, as i was headed out of office, i noticed one of my colleagues had a bright orange book in her bag. i thought to myself, ‘wow, that […]
No MSG @ the Nixon Library
Monday, March 31st, 2008The Nixon Library, now run by Tim Naftali (who is a pretty snappy dresser) took the fortune cookie talk and really ran with it and had fun. They had a huge amount of promotional material. The poster they designed was adorable, with the No MSG! promise
The passing of Dith Pran, a legendary colleague
Monday, March 31st, 2008One of our inspiring colleagues, Dith Pran, passed away early Sunday morning. He was the subject of the film, The Killing Fields, and the founder of the Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project, which aims to educate people on the Cambodian holocaust. Dith Pran was one of those legendary people you were honored to meet when […]
Bravo’s Asian Top Chefs at the NYC Asia Society on Wednesday
Monday, March 31st, 2008So the Asia Society, where I am speaking on April 16 with Fucshia Dunlop, is hosting an event highlighting the Asian Americans in Bravo’s Top Chef series on Wednesday at 6 p.m. Among the speakers is Hung, the Vietnamese American who won Top Chef. Details below. The popular Bravo reality series “Top Chefsâ€, along with […]
Genghis Cohen…this tops Shalom Hunan even.
Monday, March 31st, 2008Oh my god. When I saw this, I made Josh turn the car around so I could take a picture of Genghis Cohen (which opened in 1983 as a Chinese restaurant, but also now serves as an acoustic lounge). The Jewish-Chinese connection marches on.
Nixon Library vs. the Nixon Foundation, who controls the hallways?
Monday, March 31st, 2008The Nixon Presidential Library (run by the National Archives, note the .gov) and the Nixon Library Foundation (run by his friends and family, note the .org) have this very odd relationship, where they co-exist in the same building but have slightly different goals (truth/history versus honoring the man). The saga of the federal government […]
Fortune cookies are not a “food’ (according to our federal government
Monday, March 31st, 2008Fortune cookies are not necessarily food, at least, according to the federal government The Nixon Library made these adorable custom-made fortune cookies to promote my talk on Saturday (above). But the library is part of the National Archives which is part of the federal government which is not allowed to give out “food†as presents […]
Fortune Cookies, the Hollywood version…
Monday, March 31st, 2008Since I was in Los Angeles, I met up Hollywood folks who are interested in optioning The Fortune Cookie Chronicles for a television series about Chinese food. Optioning of course, is a looooong way from anything ever happening. I’ve had other things optioned (Man Date), so know that there are many ways for projects to […]
Crossing paths again and again with Parag Khanna
Saturday, March 29th, 2008A friend of mine mentioned that another author, Parag Khanna, had a book, The Second World, being published around the same time as mine from Random House. (read the New York Times Magazine cover excerpt.) And it turns out, really really around the same time. We ended up overlapping a lot in our tours. His […]
In the East Coast we tend to name our airports after politicians….
Saturday, March 29th, 2008I flew into the Burbank Airport and was amused to observe it was called Bob Hope Airport, named after the comedian who lived nearby and kept his plane stored there. But of course, it made sense given that it serves Burbank and is close to Hollywood. It’s an amazing airport: small, easy to get in […]
Signing books in book stores…a humbling (and encouraging) experience
Friday, March 28th, 2008So during our downtime in San Francisco, I ran around to local bookstores with Naomi Epel “signing stock” as they say in industry parlance, which means that you sashay into stores and say you are an author and you want to sign your books. Very proactive authors do this (I should really do this in […]
幸è¿ç¾é¥¼çºªäº‹ (“Fortune Cookie Chronicles” in Chinese)
Friday, March 28th, 2008Another random Chinese article…from a few weeks back, forwarded to me by my classmate from Beijing University Charlene Wang. I chose Charlene as a name for her in college, because her original English name was Beryl, and I was like nononono. You sound like some British grandmother. åŽè£”女记者掀起æ£ç»Ÿä¸é¤çƒ æŽç«žçš„新书《幸è¿ç¾é¥¼çºªäº‹ã€‹å‡ºç‰ˆåŽå¸¦èµ·äº†ç¾Žå›½äººçš„æ£ç»Ÿä¸å›½èœæ–‡åŒ–çƒã€‚ 　　幸è¿ç¾é¥¼æ˜¯ç”±æ—¥æœ¬äººå‘æ˜Žã€”å·¦å®—æ£ é¸¡”ä¸å…³å·¦å®—æ£ äº‹ã€ä¸¤ä»£å¸ƒä»€æ€»ç»Ÿæœ‰ç‰¹åˆ«ç•™åº§çš„防弹ä¸é¤å°ï¼Œè¿˜æœ‰ä¸å›½ä»¥å¤–全世界最好åƒçš„ä¸é¤é¦†åŽŸæ¥åœ¨æ¸©å“¥åŽâ€¦â€¦è¿™äº›æœ‰éƒ¨åˆ†ä½ 或许知é“，ä¸è¿‡ï¼Œæ›´å¤šçš„æ˜¯ä½ é—»æ‰€æœªé—»ï¼Œè¿™éƒ½æ˜¯ç¾Žå›½ã€Šçº½çº¦æ—¶æŠ¥ã€‹åŽè£”女记者æŽç«žï¼ˆJennifer 8 Lee)èµ°é全美ã€æ¨ªè·¨å…大洲的游历收获，写æˆæ–°ä¹¦ã€Šå¹¸è¿ç¾é¥¼çºªäº‹ã€‹ï¼Œç¾Žå¼ä¸å›½èœå¤§å‘çŽ°åŠ ä¸Šæ£ç»Ÿä¸å›½èœçš„å¯»æ ¹ï¼Œåœ¨ç¾Žå›½å¸¦èµ·äº†æ–°çš„ä¸å›½èœæ–‡åŒ–çƒã€‚
I’m sooooo tired, but I can’t sleep
Friday, March 28th, 2008This is the first day in many days that I did not have to get up at some time for an interview or an event or something. I got up at 5:30 a.m. for a 7:45 flight at SFO. But even though I went to bed at 2:30 a.m. because I was up thinking about […]
Alcohol makes people buy books…the San Francisco launch party
Friday, March 28th, 2008On Wednesday night we had an amazing book event in San Francisco, spearheaded by Dave Lu of Fanpop (and aided with Jimmy, Ben, Lydia and James). It was 150+ people at Swig Bar on Geary Street, and it was a new promising model for a book event.
Time.com: Explaining General Tso (convergence)
Friday, March 28th, 2008Time Magazine has a video with me talking about American Chinese food at Chinatown Brasserie. I’m interviewed by Gibert Cruz who himself is a print journalist by training. But we are all learning video. It’s all about convergence, I’m discovering.
Authors@Google and Chefs@Google
Friday, March 28th, 2008I went to speak at Google as part of their awesome Authors@Google program. As we drove by, I noticed that Google has its own street sign. Not Google Blvd or Google Parkway or Google Avenue — Just “Google.”
Escorts, Drivers, and Literary Chaperones
Thursday, March 27th, 2008So when authors go on book tour, they plug with this whole network of people who drive the authors from event to interview to hotel to bookstore to FedEx/Kinkos. Each city has a handful of such people, and in San Francisco I was hosted by the inimitable Naomi Epel, who has been doing it for […]
Kids and Fortune Cookie Chronicles in front of Barnes and Noble
Thursday, March 27th, 2008My friend Kelly sent me this photo of her kids with my book on display at Barnes and Nobles.
Tonight at the San Francisco Public Library and Launch Party
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008So I have two events back to back tonight (Wednesday, March 26) — library and a 150+ person party. 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. San Francisco Public Library , 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco, CA 94102 7:30 to 10:30 p.m., San Francisco Launch Party @ Swig Bar , 561 Geary Street, San Francisco, CA 94102, Organized […]
OC Register’s Q&A…musings on my Chinese name and Colbert
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008Richard Chang of the Orange County Register write a Q&A with me and also plugs the appearances at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena; Friday at Skylight Books in Los Angeles; and Saturday at the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum in Yorba Linda. What is nice: it will also be picked up in the Los Angeles Daily […]
Aol’s front page, “click bomb”
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008Aol.com put this feature on Chinese food myths on its front page for six hours on Sunday and it cause a jump in traffic to this blog, and a sharp (but quick) bump on Amazon (~200 to 124). As a guy who worked for Gap’s Internet properties observed, when they have a shopping deal featured […]
« Previous Entries