Chinese Food
Beyond Chinese Cuisine @ The Asia Society on May 6
Thursday, May 1st, 2008Another event at the Asia Society next Tuesday, May 6. (James Oseland, Editor in Chief, Saveur Magazine, is really a very skilled moderator)
From Silk Road to Steppe: Exploring Cuisines Beyond the Great Wall
In the West, when we think about food in China, what usually comes to mind are the signature dishes of Beijing, Hong Kong, […]
Tibetan fortune cookies? (well…divination dough balls)
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008Nate Barksdale remembered of his Let’s Go India researchers wrote in his report on Dharamsala back in 1998 — to wit, that one of the Dalai Lama’s lesser-known tools of statecraft involves choosing between balls of dough that had little notes hidden inside. (fortune cookie-ish yes?)
There’s even an explanation from the Tibetan government-in-exile:
Varieties of Divination:
i) […]
So what kind of jerky is this.
Monday, April 21st, 2008This is a picture of some kind of jerky in a Guangzhou market by a photographer named Charlie Grosso (”a Chinese American woman with a male Italian name” or as she put it in her offer to buy me a drink in Los Angeles “I am a Chinese girl much like yourself so this is […]
Mao, made out of hundreds of fortune cookies
Monday, April 21st, 2008
Benjamin Wallace (author of the forthcoming book The Billionaire’s Vinegar) passed me this amazing artwork by Robert Deckey (his artist brother-in-law who apparently doesn’t have a Web site that I can dig out) — a portrait of Mao Zedong made out of hundreds of fortune cookies.
Here is some promotional information from his 2007 collection. (Don’t […]
Fortune cookie presents, some of them actually made in China
Saturday, April 19th, 2008Many people have sent me fortune-cookie themed presents and cards to congratulate me on the book. Here are some of them pictured here. (I especially like the jewelish-encrusted one). Some of them were even engraved. All came with a special fortune inside
What amused me. Fortune cookies made not be made in China. But fortune cookie
mementos […]
Spices of Life, Nina and Myers and Chang
Saturday, April 19th, 2008Nina Simonds did an interview with me for a segment on Spices of Life. She introduced me to a Chinese/Asian-ish restaurant, Myers and Chang (named for the couple who started it) in the South End. It’s very funky. Here are some reviews from Yelp.
boston, Chinese food, myers and chang, nina simonds, spices of life
A literary ethnic combo deal at Columbia
Thursday, April 17th, 2008I did a presentation at Columbia with my friend Sugi, whose new novel, Love Marriage about the many generations of a Sri Lankan family was published by Random House last week. The logic of the pairing was somewhat tenuous: we both wrote books, our parents were from the great continent of Asia, and we knew […]
Is Chink’s Steak an un-PC name?
Tuesday, April 15th, 2008Keith Richburg has an article today in The Washington Post about how Asian American groups are trying to lobby to get the name of a Philadelphia eatery changed from Chink’s steak because of its derogatory connotations. It was the nickname of a man because he had slanted eyes. If it had been called “chink” for […]
Stuff Gay People Like
Saturday, April 12th, 2008My friend Geoff Upton sent out a birthday invite for his party, called Stuff Gay People like, a play on Stuff White People Like.
Come help me belatedly celebrate my 31st birthday with a celebration of Stuff Gay People (okay, Gay Men) Like:
8. Dance mixes of pop hits.Gay people love it when DJs remix and speed […]
Fortune Cookie Chronicles quoted on Chop Suey in the New Yorker Online
Saturday, April 12th, 2008A few people had passed me this little item by Andrea Thompson that ran on the New Yorker’s web site on chop suey a few weeks ago, where my book is mentioned and quoted. Exciting.
Born in the U.S.A.
In this week’s Tables for Two, Ligaya Mishan reviews Chop Suey, whose tongue-in-cheek name has little to do […]
Unfortunate Cookies (the rejects)
Thursday, April 3rd, 2008Tsue Chong company (which makes rose-brand fortune cookies) in Seattle sells bags of rejected fortune cookies for like $7.25 a pop. These are the fortune cookies that go by too quickly to be folded (think Lucy and Ethel in the candy factory) I was brought there by the MSG150 crew after lunch.
I thought the […]
Home on the red eye! Back to NYC.
Tuesday, April 1st, 2008Caught a red eye after my Elliott Bay event in Seattle (yay Jetblue) straight to JFK and showed up for work on Tuesday morning to blog. One neat convenience of being little is that I can sleep pretty well on planes. What I do: I tuck my feet into the pocket where all the in-flight […]
The Underground Onepot Dinner in Seattle with Fold-Pak menus!
Tuesday, April 1st, 2008
The underground dinner in Seattle via Onepot.org was held in this discrete loft entertainment space in a semi-industrial area in Seattle. Yay Michael Hebberoy for organizing and Jerry Traunfeld + Xuan Che for cooking, and Jerry’s partner, Steven (sp?), for designing the adorable menus with the Fold-Pak motif!
Book Musings, Chinese food, jerry traunfeld, michael […]
Nixon’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.
I actually added this photo to my presentation […]
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 Chefs”, along with other […]
Fortune cookies are not a “food’ (according to our federal government
Monday, March 31st, 2008
Fortune 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 (all […]
In the East Coast we tend to name our airports after politicians….
Saturday, March 29th, 2008
I 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 and […]
Alcohol makes people buy books…the San Francisco launch party
Friday, March 28th, 2008
On 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.
Book Musings, book party, Chinese food, dave lu, fanpop, […]
Authors@Google and Chefs@Google
Friday, March 28th, 2008
I 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.”
Appearances, Chinese food, craig silverstein, google, olivia wu
Fortune Cookie Chronicles’ Amazon rating is back up to five star
Monday, March 24th, 2008I woke up today to discover that my Amazon rating is back up to five stars because two new contributors pulled the average up. I thought I should take a screenshot of it while it lasts.
Amazon, Chinese food, rating
Thank you for whoever fixed my Chinese name on the Wikipedia page
Sunday, March 23rd, 2008Someone fixed my Chinese name on my Wikipedia entry so it is traditional rather than simplified. Thank you.
Chinese food, chinese names, wikipedia
Cashew chicken, also Chinese American
Sunday, March 23rd, 2008A reader sent me the Wikipedia post on cashew chicken (腰果鸡丁), which I had not realized, originated in one of its forms in Springfield, Missouri when Chinese restaurateur David Leong was looking for something to appeal to the local palate, so made this dish with fried chicken-type bits in the 1960s. (again the secret in […]
14k Fortune Cookie Jewelry (why?)
Sunday, March 23rd, 2008Sent to me by a coworker. A Rachel Leigh fortune cookie necklace, which is made of 14k gold, so this is not the cheap costume stuff. (Who is Rachel Leigh, I don’t know, but it’s these kinds of Web sites that make me feel like I should).
Just goes to prove how iconic fortune cookies are […]
Cary Goldstein is on vacation, so Carolyn Mimran is publicity woman for the week
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008Twelve’s publicist, Cary Goldstein, is on a (much needed) vacation — and totally unreachable (yay). Working on 12 books a year on an unrelenting pace is incredible task, and he has done an admirable job.
Anyway, so people needing to reach a publicist this week can reach Carolyn Mimran, his assistant, at carolyn dot mimran at […]
Derek Shimoda’s The Killing of a Chinese Cookie
Thursday, March 20th, 2008Derek Shimoda’s documentary, The Killing of the Chinese Cookie, is playing in the International Asian American Film Festival. I convinced Derek to come with me to Japan to document the Japaneseness of the cookies when I heard he was working on a documentary. I have a funny story about when we first talked on the […]