Sending out my galleys
By Jennifer 8. Lee | October 29, 2007
This is the view from the conference room while I was stuffing my personal galley mailings (to go with the ones that my editor, Jon Karp, and the publicist, Cary Goldstein, did). I sent out 100 galleys, with handwritten notes. My hand hurt.
Over the weekend, my mom sent me an email on behalf of my dad, who was concerned that he wasn’t mentioned in the book. Not true. I sent back a list of page numbers.
Topics: Book Musings, Chinese Food | No Comments »
An elevator button with the perfect fortune cookie message
By Jennifer 8. Lee | October 24, 2007
This is in every elevator in the NYTimes building, pointed out to me by the mysterious artist, who created a digital tribute and then made me guess where it was from…
If only this were true in real life…
Topics: Fortune Cookies, Musings | No Comments »
This txtmsg made my day…
By Jennifer 8. Lee | October 22, 2007
Arrived today at 7:44 p.m. from a friend.
“Just saw a guy on the subway reading your galley. He is 70 pages on and loving it. His name is Ian Chin. Works at Hachette.”
My friend was so excited that he interrupted Ian even as he was listening to his iPod. And the galleys only came out last week from Hachette, my publisher. But it’s a good sign that my friend could recognize the orange cover (with the soy sauce packet) in a crowded subway car. Other tidbits from txtmsging back and forth. Ian works in marketing. There was a meeting discussing my cover as an effective case study.
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The editorial spirit of the NYTimes best sellers’ list is churn and novelty
By Jennifer 8. Lee | October 22, 2007
Clark Hoyt, the New York Times public editor, takes on the New York Times best seller list this weekend. Basically what is revealed is that the New York Times list is subjective judgment as well as objective sales — it’s not literally the best selling lists in America at any given point. “The editorial spirit of the list is to track the sales of new books,†as Elie Wiesel’s publisher was told after Night was booted from the list for being too “evergreen.” As Deborah Hofmann, the booklist editor, explained to the public editor: The Times wants a list “that’s lively and churns and affords new authors the opportunity to be recorded.â€
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Maybe they think “fortune cookie” is a euphenism for mysteries of the Chinese orient?
By Jennifer 8. Lee | October 19, 2007
Ever since this post about my friend Adam’s first successful case on prosecuting a pedophile, I have noticed a lot of people landing at my site because of their search for “chinese porn” or “porn chinese.” (I wonder if these guys think “fortune cookie” really means “in bed”). Fortune Cookie Chronicles, as of this today, is actually on page 2 of the Google results, after xxxchinesegirl and chinesef…cker.
The reasons, by the way, that my blog post ranks so high despite the lack of any skin on the site, is that 1) blogs are weighted very heavily in search engines because of their freshness, 2) words in the URL are heavily weighted in search engines, and 3) blogs often use the title of the post in the URL.
Since newspapers are getting into SEO (search engine optimiziation), this becomes an interesting issue for headline writers, because a clever headline, by newspaper standards, is not one that uses obvious words. They come from the side, pay smart inferences, and plays. For example, this fantastic headline “And if it’s a Boy, Will it be Lleh? for my article about the popularity of the girl’s name Nevaeh (“heaven spelled backwards), doesn’t use the word “baby names” or “heaven.”
Newspapers are struggling with this since an increasingly share of growth is coming from search engines. So sometimes articles have two different headlines — one for the search engines, one for the page. There are now newspaper classes on how to write headlines for search engines.
Topics: Blogging Musings, Chinese Food | No Comments »
Poem: “After Challenging Jennifer Lee to a Fight” (me, the bully version?)
By Jennifer 8. Lee | October 18, 2007
This poem, by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, was sent to me in e-mail today by a friend
After Challenging Jennifer Lee to a Fight
I hesitate, because what would my father say? My aunts in India
are swathed in sarees, glass bangles and crimson nails.
Their perfect ropes of hair, oiled and glossy black, never
betray them to the wind or the chase of a chicken
in the courtyard. They’d watch my grandmother
shape bricks of dark halva, wrap each one
in tight plastic they’d chill for days.
Always calm, serene.
At least, that’s how my father
tells it, but I know when pressed,
my aunts would have done the same thing.
Jenny Lee called my younger sister
Shrimp in front of the whole group of Bus Kids—
no way I could let Jenny just swing her pink backpack
all the way home. Once the bus pulled away
from our stop on Landis Lane, I tapped her
on the shoulder and, and-we were a mess
of ribbons and slaps. She was easy to scare
from my nail marks drawing tiny pinpricks
of blood on her arms, her puffy cheeks. I told her
the red dots meant she had rabies, that
she shouldn’t tell anyone because then she’d infect
them and most of all, she better say sorry to my sister,
else I’d push her face into the barrel cacti littering
the sidewalks. My first rage, my first fire. Jenny
sniffled Sorry and I was relieved: I wasn’t sure
I could hit much more and my skinny legs
were spent with dust and sweat. My sister
and I walked home in silence. If we wore sarees,
all the yards and yards of shiny sateen would’ve
unwound from our tiny bodies, too light to drag
in the dust, too proud and taken with wind, like flags.
(From At the Drive-In Volcano. © Tupelo Press, Inc., 2007)
I was, I think, much nicer than this. Though I will say that in 2nd grade, one girl told the other girls on the playground that the eczema I had on my legs was some contagious horrible skin disease. So they would not play with me. And I cried.
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It’s my book! In the form of an NYU workshop! (On November 13)
By Jennifer 8. Lee | October 15, 2007
I was forwarded an email about this event over the AAJA list: Found In Translation: An Exploration Of How Asian Cuisines Become Part Of The American Culinary Landscap
My first thought as I read the description: It’s almost like my book (only more general than just Chinese). Here is the description: How does ethnic cuisine move out of the margins and into America’s culinary mainstream? This workshop will take a look at three cuisines and how they have been “translated†into American culture and cuisine. Chinese food has been around for over a century, but is what we eat in this country truly Chinese? The trend these days is to offer authentic Chinese-the dishes that chefs eat behind closed doors. As Indian food becomes more fashionable and sophisticated, why do we know so little about its regional cuisines? Places like Kerala and Gujarat have rich traditions that are just beginning to make a mark here. And Filipino food, which some say is poised to be the next Asian food to be “discovered,†is the ideal cuisine to watch as we understand the cultural and historical underpinnings involved in these processes. This panel will take a look at how these three cuisines fare in the U.S. and how Americans embrace-or reject-various ethnic cuisines as they influence what we eat now and will eat in the future. A reception featuring a sampling of dishes from Cendrillon follows at the Great Room lobby atrium at 19 University Place.
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
And maybe that 7-11 clerk is actually an anthrax specialist too
By Jennifer 8. Lee | October 15, 2007
I saw this sign while driving through Kansas hunting Chinese restaurants.
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I’m so Chinese-ish that I have a Bag of Bags
By Jennifer 8. Lee | October 15, 2007
I was cleaning out my closet this weekend. Gave away one of my two air mattresses that I found there — neither of which I bought (how did this happen?) plus one of three extra blankets that has accumulated there. Deep inside the bowels of the closet found one of those huge Chinese red-white-and-blue plaid bags (the kind that is the symbol of developing world transience) — full of other plastic bags. This is a legacy of growing up in a Chinese household (I even tie them into knots).
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Scrabulous! Hanging out with your friends without having to be in the same place
By Jennifer 8. Lee | October 14, 2007
I’ve recently become addicted to Scrabulous (as a WSJ article highlights) — which is like Scrabble on Facebook, only they can’t use the Scrabble name probably because of Intellectual Property reasons.
I can play like 20 games simultaneously, often with people in many different countries or people I have not spoken to physically in years. I find it’s like hanging out with friends, only you don’t have to talk to anybody.
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My galleys are here!
By Jennifer 8. Lee | October 14, 2007
Got an email from my editor who said my galleys have arrived as of Friday. He says they look great. Now am in the process of compiling a spreadsheet of journalists, food bloggers, and other people who would take an interest in a book on how Chinese food is All-American.
They don’t have to write about it, they just have to 1) be interested enough in the topic to at least flip through it and 2) be chatty. This is apparently how the book industry builds buzz.
This, by the way is the original hardcover mockup. I liked the bigger chopsticks on the spine.
Supplies are limited. (it is actually more expensive to make a bound galley than it is to make a hardcover book, because of scale) If you feel strongly that you must have one (or a real book), send an email to jenny8lee (at) fortunecookiechronicles.com.
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No salad dressing in Paraguay?
By Jennifer 8. Lee | October 11, 2007
My friend Emily, who is a Fulbright scholar in Paraguay, said it lacks salad dressing. In lieu of mailing the bottles (heavy), I sent her powered packets to Paraguay, which she explains is sort of like the Nebraska of South America — landlocked and flat.
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
There should be no such things as negative fortune cookies
By Jennifer 8. Lee | October 10, 2007
The New York Times business section writes about ominous fortune cookies that are coming out of Wonton Food in Long Island City. (Why is it in business and not like Dining In/Dining Out or Metro? Because it was a business editor who got the original weird fortune that sparked the idea). I helped out a bit on the story. The reporter showed me the fortune and I was able to — on sight — identify which factory it had come from (scary).
Among the more frank fortunes:
Perhaps you’ve been focusing too much on yourself.
There may be a crisis looming, be ready for it.
Today is a disastrous day. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
It’s over your head now. Time to get some professional help.
What Wonton Food will learn is that Americans don’t like negative fortunes. It is contrary to their sense of entitlement.
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A prescient fortune cookie for the mysterious artist in the NYTimes lobby
By Jennifer 8. Lee | October 10, 2007
Almost every day for the last few months (even on weekends), you could see a man wearing a T-shirt hunched over his Apple Powerbook in the lobby of new The New York Times building. He would be furiously tapping away while little green lights would pulsate across the longs chains of screens dangling in formation against the orange walls.
Topics: Chinese Food, Fortune Cookies | No Comments »
God is Not Great is a National Book Award finalists (which affects my life just a tiny bit)
By Jennifer 8. Lee | October 10, 2007
Christopher Hitchen’s book, God is Not Great (now with its own Wikipedia entry!), is a National Book Award finalist. Which is fantastic. It affects my life only in a little bit in that Cary called e-mailed me this morning to tell me we have to move my pre-pub dinners with booksellers up a week in November so it doesn’t conflict with National Book Award week. Tim Weiner, a fellow NYTimes reporter, also is a finalist for Legacy of Ashes; The History of the CIA. Yay)
Full list of finalists after the jump…
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The scene of an accident. I wonder how the owner felt.
By Jennifer 8. Lee | October 9, 2007
I (and many others) walked by broken Sanyo flat-screen television on October 8, 8:30 a.m. Corner of West 70th and Columbus in Manhattan. For some reason. I found this scene incredibly New York. I wonder where the owner is, what happened, and how (he? she?) felt when the screen hit the ground.
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Hiking the High Line
By Jennifer 8. Lee | October 9, 2007
I took a walk on the High Line this past weekend with my friend Josh as part of Open House New York — one of the first times that the public could (legally) walk along the High Line. And yes, the urban Cinderella experience is really as cool as everyone says it is.
Topics: Chinese Food, Journalism Musings | No Comments »
They’ve Starbucked the Kong!
By Jennifer 8. Lee | October 6, 2007
I went back to Harvard yesterday with my friend Chris and stepped into the Hong Kong Chinese restaurant and was shocked. They’ve renovated the venerable half-century old Hong Kong Chinese restaurant (which until now basically looked like something from Happy Days, vinyl booths, cracked linoleum and all) and made it look like Starbucks on the inside.
Topics: Chinese Food, Chinese Restaurants | No Comments »
No stars for Wakiya from Bruni.
By Jennifer 8. Lee | October 5, 2007
I’m a bit delayed in posting this as I am still not being a vampire and blogging all day, but Frank Bruni of The New York Times gave Wakiya a harsh no star rating (which technically is “satisfactory,” but really isn’t, especially given what you pay for it).
As he writes…”To get to these tables, you walk down a brilliant red carpet. It’s the egg-drop Oscars. But as with so many breathlessly hyped events, the reality doesn’t live up to the great expectations. “
Topics: Chinese Food, Chinese Restaurants | No Comments »
“Jenny from the blog”
By Jennifer 8. Lee | October 5, 2007
My friend, Noam, quipped that last night. (One of those weird world things…Oddly we went to the same elementary, middle school, high school, college, worked on the same school paper, now both work in the same company — but the weirdest part of all. we grew up in the same building in Morningside Gardens.)
Topics: Blogging Musings | No Comments »
Page proofs! Only $1.25 per change.
By Jennifer 8. Lee | October 3, 2007
I got my page proofs back from Twelve/Hachette, along with a very stern warning: “This will be your only opportunity to review the typeset pages, so please be sure that all changes you wish to make are included.”
It also says, “Each change costs roughly $1.25. However this is not a per line or per page charge. For example if you have five different changes to one line, that counts as five changes, or about $6.25 for that line. If you have two additional changes to that page, it would come to a total of $8.75 for that page alone.”
Though the letter also informs me that authors have an alteration allowance between $200 – $800.
Whew!
Topics: Book Musings, Chinese Food | No Comments »
Frozen Indian-Chinese food, at a Patel Brothers near you!
By Jennifer 8. Lee | October 3, 2007
I went shopping at Patel Brothers in Jackson Heights with my friend Roopa the other day, and saw these frozen Indian-Chinese dishes to go! (sorry for the poor photo quality, I took it with my Treo and the lighting in the freezers was bad).
Hakka noodles is to Indian-Chinese food what lo mein is to American-Chinese food.
Veg Manchurian is like their version of “General Tso.” I actually met the chef, Nelson Wang, who created the Manchurian dishes in Mumbai!
This is Paneer Chili (spicy cheesetofu). Note the Chinese man with the fu man chu mustache and the peasant farm hat.
So of the cultures that absolutely adore Chinese food, the Indians (along with the Koreans and Peruvians) are near the top of the list. Indian-Chinese food is more spicy. And it has more of a Hakka (“Guest people”) influence as the majority of the Chinese that went over to India were Hakka.
Chinese food is such a big deal in India that it’s risen to be part of their national food dichotomy: Northern vs. Southern, Veg vs. Non-Veg (why they say “non-veg” instad of “meat” is a mystery to me), and Indian vs. Chinese. Chinese food is so popular that top Indian restaurants will have like two pages of their menu devoted to Chinese food.
If you want to try Indian Chinese food in New York City, you can try Chinese Mirch at East 28th and Lexington. In the Chicago area, I recommend Hot Wok Village.
One of the most popular Indian-Chinese dishes? American chop suey.
Topics: Chinese Food, Chop Suey | No Comments »
I am no longer a vampire! I am a full-time blogger!
By Jennifer 8. Lee | October 3, 2007
As of this week, I joined the staff of City Room, the New York City blog on nytimes.com, full-time (a small item ran on the blog of The New York Observer). I no longer work nights 7 p.m. to 2 a.m.
It is very weird coming into the Nytimes building while it’s daylight outside. My first reaction was, “Wow, this building (which has floor to ceiling windows) gets a lot of light.
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
Peanut Butter is so American, you can’t even really find it in the UK
By Jennifer 8. Lee | September 29, 2007
I have a few friends who just headed over the England and were dismayed to discover that you can’t buy peanut butter in the UK (except maybe in some obscure specialty stores). One of them eats peanut butter sandwiches at least once a day — sometimes twice — so this is a real issue. They are suffering withdrawal. Peanut butter is such a huge phenomenon here, it’s weird to think of it not being easily accessible in the rest of the western world (sort of like realizing that Thanksgiving is not a holiday that anyone in the rest of the world cares about. In Beijing the forlorn Americans got together and had roast duck — no turkeys in China). Everyone was like, oh England will be so easy to deal with — compared to other places to live abroad. There won’t be a language issue. They have nice public transportation so it’s easy to get around. They have all the amenities you could want — except peanut butter.
This American obsession with peanut butter has not gone unnoticed.
So according to peanut butter lore, peanut butter is just over a century and a quarter old, having been created around 1890 doctor as a easy to digest protein for people who couldn’t chew meat. It really only hit the mainstream when the emulsifiers kept it from separating into the oil and ground nuts.
Weird fact: the largest export market for American peanut butter is Saudi Arabia.
So, I’m trying to send over a fix of peanut butter.
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Asian American Literary Award Winners Announced
By Jennifer 8. Lee | September 28, 2007
The Asian American Writers Workshop (which is based in New York City interestingly, and not like San Francisco) announced their 2007 Asian American Literary Award Winners yesterday.
Poetry
Linh Dinh for Borderless Bodies (Factory School, 2006)
Nonfiction
Amitav Ghosh for Incendiary Circumstances: A Chronicle of the Turmoil of Our Times (Houghton Mifflin, 2006)
Fiction
Samrat Upadhyay for The Royal Ghosts (Houghton Mifflin, 2006)
Topics: Book Musings | No Comments »