{"id":313,"date":"2007-11-29T20:29:37","date_gmt":"2007-11-30T01:29:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/2007\/11\/29\/my-first-reviewstarred-from-publishers-weekly\/"},"modified":"2007-12-03T00:39:54","modified_gmt":"2007-12-03T05:39:54","slug":"my-first-reviewstarred-from-publishers-weekly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/blog\/2007\/11\/29\/my-first-reviewstarred-from-publishers-weekly\/","title":{"rendered":"My first review: Starred, from Publishers Weekly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My agent, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/about\/agent\/\">Larry Weissman<\/a>, sent me my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.publishersweekly.com\/article\/CA6506251.html\">review in Publishers Weekly<\/a> (scroll 1\/3 of the way down), which is out today :<\/p>\n<p>* The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food<br \/>\n<strong> Jennifer 8. Lee. Hachette\/Twelve,<br \/>\n$24.99 (308p) ISBN 978-0-446-58007-6<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Readers will take an unexpected and entertaining journey\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthrough culinary, social and cultural history\u00e2\u20ac\u201din this delightful first book on the origins of the<br \/>\ncustomary after-Chinese-dinner treat by New York Times reporter Lee. When a large number of Powerball winners in a 2005 drawing revealed that mass-printed paper fortunes were to blame, the author (whose middle initial is Chinese for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153prosperity\u00e2\u20ac\u009d)  went in search of the backstory. She tracked the winners down to Chinese restaurants all over America, and the paper slips the fortunes are written on back to a Brooklyn company. This travellike narrative serves as the spine of her cultural history\u00e2\u20ac\u201dnot a book on Chinese cuisine, but the Chinese food of take-out-and-delivery\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand permits her to frequently but safely wander off into various tangents related to the cookie.<br \/>\nThere are satisfying minihistories on the relationship between Jews and Chinese<br \/>\nfood and a biography of the real General Tso, but Lee also pries open factoids and tidbits of American culture that eventually touch on large social and cultural subjects such as identity, immigration and nutrition. Copious research backs her many lively anecdotes, and being American-born Chinese yet willing to scrutinize herself as much as her objectives, she wins the reader over. Like the numbers on those lottery fortunes, the book\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a winner. (Mar.)<\/p>\n<p>Nutrition? I&#8217;m glad I added that (very brief) section&#8230;paragraph.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My agent, Larry Weissman, sent me my review in Publishers Weekly (scroll 1\/3 of the way down), which is out today : * The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food Jennifer 8. Lee. Hachette\/Twelve, $24.99 (308p) ISBN 978-0-446-58007-6 Readers will take an unexpected and entertaining journey\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthrough culinary, social and cultural history\u00e2\u20ac\u201din [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-musings"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2pydS-53","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}