LATimes: “a deeply enjoyable meal, for anyone who likes talking or thinking about food.”
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 16, 2008
Seth Faison has a review in today’s Los Angeles Times, which focuses a lot on the authenticity aspect of the food. I don’t think this review was on our radar (sometimes you know when a book review is timed to run, and as in this case, sometimes you don’t). My Google alert actually picked this one up for me with the partial sentence “…Jennifer 8. Lee observes in “The Fortune Cookie Chronicles,” her engaging, funny voyage into understanding…”
Sigh of relief.
Seth picks up this paragraph, which I haven’t seen anyone do yet:
As Lee points out, the tempura we expect in every Japanese restaurant actually came to Japan from Portuguese missionaries in the 16th century. Potatoes, that Irish staple, went across the Atlantic from the New World in the 1700s. “At a certain point, that which is exotic stops being so,” she concludes. “It becomes, in a new way, ‘authentic’ to its new home.”
[full text after the jump]
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It’s my birthday and all I want to do is sleep
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 15, 2008
I have a one day respite between New York City publicity (which happens to be my birthday). Dinner tonight with my closest friends and then book tour starts tomorrow. It goes Washington –> Philly –> Boston –> San Francisco –> Los Angeles –> Seattle –> (Home in NYC for a few days) –> Chicago.
Put together by the amazing Cary Goldstein. We are getting a good bit of local media, which is what one ideally wants on book tour.
I’ve gotten quite a number of birthday wishes via Facebook, which I find intriguing. It’s interesting to me all the ways there are to wish someone a happy birthday. Once upon a time there was 1) in person 2) phone call and 3) by card. Starting a few years ago, I started getting message by e-mail, then e-card, then IM, then txt. The newest thing started just last year, this year as Facebook opened itself up to the universe…wall postings. Right now, as of today, I have gotten only one phone call, from my friend Brendan in Chicago, who defiantly does not have a Facebook account.
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Jeff Yang: on books and babies.
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 12, 2008
Jeff Yang, the founder of A. Magazine and a columist for Sfgate.com, has a piece interweaving The Fortune Cookie Chronicles and raising his sons.
We had an hour-long interview before I ran out for a TV shoot on Saturday where he told me he liked my book. I was like, if there is one person on this planet that should like my book, that would be Jeff Yang. If Jeff Yang did not like my book, I would have failed. Full text after the jump
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Now 40% off on Amazon
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 12, 2008
Not sure why, but Amazon just upped the discount on The Fortune Cookie Chronicles from 34% to 40%.
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Salon: “An attitude of amused observation, obsessive reporting, anthropological curiosity”
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 12, 2008
Nina Lalli does a Q&A with me for Salon, which was picked up on the front page of Yahoo!
How the fortune cookie crumbles
Is Chinese food as American as apple pie? Jennifer 8. Lee discusses the strange evolution of everyone’s favorite ethnic food.
By Nina Lalli
Mar. 11, 2008 | As a teenager, New York Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee was crushed to learn that fortune cookies weren’t Chinese. She likens that moment to “learning I was adopted while being told there was no Santa Claus.” She became obsessed with answering the specific question of where the cookies did originate and the bigger question of how Chinese food became, as she says, more American than apple pie.
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Boston Globe: An author’s quest for identity.
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 12, 2008
Emily Schwab writes a lovely piece today in The Boston Globe about me and my quest for identity through Chinese food. I met with Emily last November during my pre-pub tour at Changsho in Cambridge and we had a lovely time. So this is one of the longest pieces in development on this book.
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Confucius say, you will be arrested today for something stupid
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 10, 2008
Police were able to arrest two robbery suspects in Tulsa, Oklahoma because they found matching fortune cookies from the robbed Chinese restaurant and in the crooks’ pockets, according to this Associated Press story.
The crooks loved fortune cookies so much, that not only did they take money they grabbed fortune cookies on their way out the door?
To be honest, I don’t know that matching fortune cookies is enough to catch suspicion as many stores in that area probably use the same distributors.
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Hartford Courant: “difficult to imagine a more satisfying book”
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 9, 2008
The Hartford Courant publishes a review by Steve Weinberg.
Nice phrases: “Alternately breezy and cerebral, it serves as an appetizer platter, a bowl of hot and sour soup, an array of main dishes, tea and dessert — simultaneously.” and “Flashes of insight punctuate the text.”
He has his criticism about the writing and structure, which I acknowledge as fair: “The book is not a literary masterpiece — portions are repetitious, the organizational structure seems murky and the breezy tone is occasionally cloying. Fortunately, none of those minor problems sinks the superb content served up.”
(I am never going to be worshiped for my sentence structure. Not sure what parts are repetitious, but not surprised. Yes. Organizational structural was tough and yes, I could see overdosing on the breeziness by some people’s tolerance). But I’m glad he’s like, it’s such a fun book anyway because that is what I was hoping would compensate for the writing flaws. Full review after the jump.
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Breaking Amazon’s #100 barrier
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 8, 2008
Yes. I obsess about my Amazon ranking, like every new author does. It’s like watching a stock ticker, which updates every hour (if you are in the top 1,000?) and every day otherwise. (My dad obsesses too, once I told him there was something to watch. We are very goal-oriented people), Today, just now, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles broke the 100 barrier into two-digit territory. My friend Pawel was here to see me cheer. I took a screenshot because I have no idea if it is going to last.
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My Greatest Chinese Restaurant in the World, on the brink of bankruptcy?
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 8, 2008
So the restaurant that I picked as the “Greatest Chinese Restaurant in the World” is struggling and may be on the verge of bankruptcy, according to the Vancouver Sun, which is really sad.
Sam Lau’s business (like many Vancouver Chinese restaurants) is being hammered by cheap flights to Hong Kong and the weakness of the American dollar. (The change happened in July. I handed in my manuscript in early June). He is barely turning a profit. According to the article:
He said business declined sharply last July, when Oasis offered cheap flights to Hong Kong for $300 to $500. “If Chinese person has money, they will go to Hong Kong. And U.S. is cheap now with currency,” he says. “Affects all Chinese restaurants in Vancouver.”
Topics: Best Chinese Restaurants Around the World, Chinese Restaurants | No Comments »
Bloomberg: Lee whets our appetites with light, easy-to-digest stories.
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 8, 2008
Bloomberg News moved a review by Yvette Ferreol. It’s interesting to me how much the business press has taken to it: Forbes (the meanest review I got), Fast Company, now Bloomberg.
March 6 (Bloomberg) — China’s Qing-dynasty hero Zuo Zongtang, aka General Tso, probably never had fried chicken. At least not the deep-fried boneless kind soused in citrusy sweet- and-sour sauce that’s served at Chinese takeout places and all- you-can-eat buffets across America.
And those “Chinese†fortune cookies millions of Americans look forward to cracking after a satisfying meal? They may have originated in Japan.
more »
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The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, in Chinese!
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 8, 2008
So The World Journal (the largest Chinese language newspaper in the country) ran a piece on me earlier in the week. (My mom did send them a press release, though. Yay moms)
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Rocky Mountain News gives The Fortune Cookie Chronicles an A!
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 8, 2008
John C. Ensslin reviews The Fortune Cookie Chronicles in The Rocky Mountain News and gives the book an A. I’m like goodness, I haven’t received a grade since senior semester of college!
Most interesting critique…the hunt for the greatest Chinese restaurant in the world. Thinks it’s labor intensive (it was) and doesn’t add that much to the book (debatable). My editor and I had discussed the merits of this chapter. Thank god we kept it shortish. But the value of doing that research is more subtle because the travels there informed a lot of the insight in other parts of the book (i.e. the existence of American-style Chinese food in South Korea!) , and the overall vision of the book.
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San Francisco Chronicle: “Prose is thrown out in confident tendrils”
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 8, 2008
Wow. The San Francisco Chronicle got the co-founder of Booktour.com, Kevin Smokler, to review my book. (I’m actually in the process right now of figuring out how to convert my .xml file of appearances into a .csv template for book events so I can put events on booktour.com. So booktour.com is on my mind)
I think his review is pretty much right on target…which is that you may or may not buy into the structural conceit of the book, but it’s so much fun anyway, so who cares.
The structure was really, really hard. I have an Excel spreadsheet to prove how much I had to think about it.
I will say however, that I intended the Open Source chapter to bring a lot of things together: menu delivery, fortune cookies, general tso’s chicken, the hunt for the greatest restaurant around the world, the immigration patterns, etc. But maybe it didn’t work for a lot of people.
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NYTBR: Wok On and podcast!
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 8, 2008
The New York Times Book Review runs its review of my book this Sunday by Jan and Michael Stern. It’s already online now and it actually closed 10 days ago, on a Wednesday. (The Book Review, like the Magazine, has a incredible close-to-distribution lag, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me but may involve giving the industry a heads-up as to what is coming. Book publishers and retailers always get the review like a week in advance).
I actually had a sense that the review might be good news when I got a e-mail from the section’s Web producer inviting me to join in the podcast with the subject line “book review podcast.”
My first thought was, “Wait, our book review?” I had to look at the domain name of his email to make sure.
I wrote back “Hopefully the fact you are interviewing me means that the book didn’t get panned. Either that or you guys have a soft spot for podcasting people who are in the same building.”
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Wisconsin Public Radio on the origin of the fortune cookie
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 8, 2008
Here is the mp3 of an interview I did on the origin of the fortune cookie on Wisconsin Public Radio a week ago, along with Eric Hagiwara, for their Friday food program. (I know. Delay. Book craziness. Why else am I catching up on blogging on a Saturday morning at 6 a.m.?!).
They liked me well enough that they might have me back to talk about dumplings.
Topics: Audio, Fortune Cookies, Media & Interviews | No Comments »
Preparing for The Colbert Report
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 8, 2008
Here is my explanation of what it’s like to prepare for The Colbert Report on The Huffington Post:
Don’t try to be funny.
That was the piece of advice that was repeatedly given to me when my friends first heard I was booked on The Colbert Report to talk about my book on Chinese food in America, called The Fortune Cookie Chronicles. I had never watched a full episode of The Colbert Report because not only do I not have cable, but I also don’t own a television (which makes me a bit of an oddity, but very productive).
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NYT on MSG and Umami
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 8, 2008
Julia Moskin has a lovely explanatory piece on MSG in Wednesday’s Times. (Sorry for delay, but book craziness). I do touch on MSG and the concept of umami, the fifth taste, in my book in the soy sauce trade wars chapter.
I use MSG in my cooking sometimes. We call it weijing. China is actually a net importer of MSG, from Japan, if I remember correctly
Amazing how aware Americans are of MSG. Stephen Colbert actually said his interview of me would feature a lot of MSG: “Me Shouting at Guest.” Luckily this turned out not to be true.
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
Introducing fortune cookies to China
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 6, 2008
During my trip to China, I took along boxes of Wonton Food’s fortune cookies and gave them out to Chinese people along the way. This is a compilation of their reactions. (The people here are from Houyu, Kaifeng, Shenzhen and Changsha).
Topics: Fortune Cookies, Quirky, Video | No Comments »
Boston.com chat transcript.
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 6, 2008
Yesterday I did an hour-long chat on Boston.com. Lots of questions of General Tso and Stephen Colbert. The slideshow apparently drove a lot of traffic too.
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Airbrushing before a TV appearance
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 6, 2008
Make-up artist (holding a menacing metallic device): Have you ever been airbrushed?
Me (looking at aforementioned device): Um, not to my knowledge.
I thought airbrushing was something they do only after a photo is taken? Apparently not.
Topics: Appearances, Book Musings, Quirky | No Comments »
Boston.com: Eight things you didn’t know about Chinese food
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 5, 2008
Boston.com, in advance of an online chat I will do today at 4 p.m., put up a nice slideshow called 8 Things You Didn’t Know About Chinese Food. (see my pictures of the chow mein sandwich and the Chinese hot dog!)
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Colbert eats whole apple pies
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 5, 2008
I did an interview on The Colbert Report yesterday, which ran last night (Tuesday).
It’s actually a nervewracking experience. Other interviews are more like “So tell me about your book” and you talk and talk and talk (NPR is great for this). But The Colbert Report is a delicate dance where you have to allow him to be funny while at the same time getting your points in, and being flexible enough to get sidetracked when he improvs a line in and rolling with it.
The instructions: keep talking and making your points (you’re trying to educate him), don’t try to be funny (that’s his job), don’t try to pander (talk about ‘truthiness’ or whatever).
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Introducing my appearances Google Maps Mashup, by Jen Bourey, map goddess
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 3, 2008
So my friend Jen Bourey created this lovely Google Maps Mashup listing my appearances. Which I think is incredibly cool and other authors would be intrigued by.
Basically there is an .xml file on my Web site, which I edit with info like city, date, etc
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NYP: moo shu of riveting, Chinese-food-related anecdotes and facts
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 3, 2008
The New York Post review is long and quite nice Another punny headline (“Hot and Sour Scoop”). Best lines: “a moo shu of riveting, Chinese-food-related anecdotes and facts” and “Lee condenses a formidable amount of research into a compact, breezy page-turner.” This is the first review that mentions the conversations with my mom.
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