MSG now regrets putting up a graphic of Jeremy Lin’s head over the broken fortune cookie. Almost inevitable. But still, I think someone must have thought this was a good idea. And no one thought maybe it wasn’t. On television is the strangest part.Â

I got these certificates in the mail yesterday. Superfun.

Influential personalities in restaurant industry.

Yay.

It’s actually not bad, carby overload, with cool crispy and grainy and
sauce texture. It’s arguably the most popular Irish-Chinese dish. Best
when you are drunk from beer, I’ve been told.

Best description when they called it “Chinese poutine.”

Topics: Best Chinese Restaurants Around the World, Chinese Food, Chinese Restaurants | No Comments »

Cary Goldstein, New Publisher of Twelve

By Jennifer 8. Lee | January 11, 2011

Grand Central Publishing today abruptly announced that Cary Goldstein, publicist extraordinaire and deputy publisher, is going to take over as publisher of Twelve, effective immediately (their website changed quickly enough).
This is covered by The New York Times, the Associated Press, Publishers Weekly. Cary recently signed a two-book deal with Christopher Hitchens, who was diagnosed with esophagus cancer — which is a real coup as Hitchens did not move over to Simon & Schuster with Jon Karp (awesome editor). Hitchens, of course, gave Twelve its first long-running number one New York Times best seller, God is not Great.

Here is the email we got

Dear Friends:

I am writing to let you know about changes being made in the management of Twelve. Susan Lehman will be leaving the imprint and Cary Goldstein will be taking over the role of Publisher. While I realize that change is hard, and that there have certainly been significant changes at Twelve over the past months, the elevation of Cary to Publisher speaks to the continuity of the imprint, as Cary has been a pillar from the start. More than that, Cary has been the mastermind behind many of Twelve’s most notable successes, and is fully committed (passionate would be an even more apt word) to the imprint’s unique publishing philosophy, and its success.

Details are included in the attached press release.

All best,

Jamie Raab

And the attached press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Sophie Cottrell
212-364-1281 / Sophie.cottrell@hbgusa.com

CARY GOLDSTEIN NAMED PUBLISHER OF TWELVE

(January 11, 2011 / New York) – Jamie Raab, EVP and Publisher of Grand Central Publishing, announced today that Cary Goldstein will be assuming the position of Publisher of Twelve, replacing Susan Lehman.

As Associate Publisher of Twelve, Goldstein has been responsible for orchestrating the imprint’s publicity strategies, and acquiring and editing works of fiction and nonfiction. “Cary has been part of Twelve since its inception, and has truly been one of the pillars of the imprint,” said Raab. “He’s a brilliant marketing strategist, a very fine editor with a keen eye for acquisitions, and, most importantly, has a real vision for the future of Twelve. He created enormously successful campaigns for Ted Kennedy’s TRUE COMPASS and Sebastian Junger’s WAR – and these are just two of many. Cary’s commitment to Twelve’s books and authors is extraordinary, and I look forward to seeing him thrive in his new role as he shapes Twelve’s publishing program and guides the imprint to continued success and acclaim.”

“Susan Lehman is an extremely insightful, creative and talented editor,” Raab said. “Unfortunately, the role of Publisher just wasn’t the perfect fit.”

Twelve was launched in 2007 with a unique approach – to publish no more than one book per month – and the results of this intense focus have been remarkable: Twelve has published 43 titles, 20 of which have been New York Times bestsellers, including god is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens and True Compass by the late Senator Ted Kennedy (both of which reached the #1 slot), and Christopher Buckley’s novel Boomsday. Other recent bestsellers include the aforementioned War by Sebastian Junger, as well as Nurtureshock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, and The Sherlockian by Graham Moore.

At Twelve Goldstein has edited Jess Winfield’s My Name is Will: A Novel of Sex, Drugs and Shakespeare, a New York Times Book Review “Editor’s Choice”; Jerry Weintraub’s memoir When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead, which was a New York Times bestseller; and Benjamin Hale’s forthcoming debut novel The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection and IndieNext pick for February 2011. Most recently, Goldstein negotiated a two-book deal with Christopher Hitchens for a collection of essays entitled Arguably, scheduled for publication in September 2011, and a book-length meditation on “malady and mortality,” chronicling Hitchens’ ongoing ordeal with esophageal cancer.

Prior to joining Twelve in July 2006, Goldstein was the Associate Director of Publicity and Director of Web Publicity at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, where he began his career as an intern in 1996. He has also been senior publicist at Basic Books, Director of National Poetry Month for The Academy of American Poets, and buyer and features editor responsible for Fiction, Literature, and Poetry at BarnesandNoble.com.

Goldstein’s role is effective immediately. New additions to Twelve’s staff will be announced shortly.

Topics: Chinese Food, Twelve | No Comments »

Tracking Chinese restaurants, chop suey and fortune cookies over the last two centuries via Google books

By Jennifer 8. Lee | January 9, 2011

This ngram is a broad metric of the concepts in Google books, and the dates generally track with my research: "chop suey" jumping around 1896, "fortune cookies" surging after World War II, and "Chinese restaurants" making an appearance in 1860, around the beginnings of the first waves of Chinese immigration.  " Notice how "Chinese restaurants" continue to  go up even as "chop suey" falls.

Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »

General Tso’s Soy Protein, from Wild Ginger in Williamsburg

By Jennifer 8. Lee | January 9, 2011

Yummy? Or not.

Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »

Like “A Year of Living Biblically,” but With Fortune Cookies

By Jennifer 8. Lee | January 7, 2011

Every day for a year, a writer, Matt Kelsey, is going to follow the advice of a fortune cookie and play the lucky numbers, to see if it really will make a difference.

Here is his press release, which I was fascinated by in part because it’s on the Kansas City Star website. Sort of like user-generated, but not. Wonder if they charge or not. Great way to engage a community. Allowing them to send put press releases on the major newspaper web site.

Local writer to follow fortune cookie advice for one year

Everyone has cracked open a fortune cookie at the end of a Chinese food meal. But few people these days actually heed the advice given on the tiny paper fortune.
For one calendar year, freelance writer Matt Kelsey is going to do exactly that.
Starting on Saturday, January 1, 2011, Kelsey is going to open one fortune cookie each day and follow the whims of the fortune. Additionally, he will also purchase a $1 lottery ticket using the lucky numbers on the back of each day’s fortune.
Through his new blog, My Daily Fortune, Kelsey will chronicle his fortune cookie adventures. The blog can be found at www.mydailyfortune.blogspot.com.
“This is a personal growth project for me, but I also believe others can benefit from what I learn,” Kelsey said. “The fortunes found inside cookies are usually basic and simple, but oftentimes those nuggets of wisdom are the most profound.”
Readers of My Daily Fortune can track Kelsey’s daily updates and even follow the fortunes in their own lives.
“I think it would be terrific if people could actually participate in the project by leaving comments on their own experiences,” Kelsey said.
In addition to checking out the project at www.mydailyfortune.blogspot.com, readers can also follow Kelsey’s Twitter (@matt_kelsey) and Facebook updates.

It looks like he will already be a featured in an article in the Kansas City Star, so there is some luck there. Maybe there is a book out of it.

Topics: Chinese Food, Fortune Cookies | No Comments »

Donate to “The Search for General Tso!” (and get on IMDb)

By Jennifer 8. Lee | January 7, 2011

Help bring General Tso and his chickens to a theater near you!

I am co-producing a feature-length documentary on American Chinese food with the Peabody-award winning team behind King Corn, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, called “The Search for General Tso.” We think it’s a great way to bring my research to a larger audience in an engaging and informative way.

And it’s not just us who think that! We got a $40,000 matching developing grant [pdf] from the extremely competitive National Endowment for the Humanities. We need your help. We have a few weeks to unlock $13,000+ of that grant. (All the paperwork is due in February). Your donations are tax deductible since it’s a non-profit. Our fiscal sponsor is Arts Engine.

That NEH grant, along with generous seed donations, actually helped fund our trip to Taipei to interview the chef who invented General Tso’s chicken, C.K. Peng, last month. Chef Peng is 93, so this was an extremely important interview to do ASAP. And it was hilarious. I just finished translating the interview with the editor this week.

This picture below is a very intense filming of General Tso’s chicken at Chef Peng’s restaurant, Peng’s Agora Garden.

The NEH reviewers gave our proposal extremely high ratings.

This initial development money will get us a long way to creating a trailer, which is then used to raise more serious funding — ideally well into the six-figures (or beyond).

Watch my talk on TED.com from Taste3 below to get a flavor of the quirky tone of our documentary, which is backed up with extensive research.

And yes, as you can see from my video/research General Tso is a real guy. He’s a Qing Dynasty military hero from Hunan province whose Chinese name is Zuo Zongtang (左宗棠). Zuo is roughly pronounced ‘juoh.’ Here is a picture of him below from a billboard outside his hometown.

And yes, there were a lot of chicken in that town.

So to show our appreciation. If you donate $88 and above, you can join in on a walking tour of Chinatown street food I am doing in New York City on March 5 and 6. If you donate $150 and above, I will send you a signed copy of my book along with a hand-selected Wonton Food fortune (this is where the famed winning Powerball fortunes came from). At $500 and above, I’ll send you a book and a real authentic Japanese fortune cookie, which I just brought back from Kyoto. If you donate over $2,000, I’ll come and do a talk anywhere in the United States, schedule permitting and travel costs covered. If you want any of these, you must email me at jenny8lee[at]fortunecookiechronicles[at]com

And for the super-ambitious, at $10,000, you get an IMDb listing as a producer! And if you want to be a executive producer (with names on posters and all that), you can donate $100,000 — but don’t do it through credit card, email curt[at]wickedelicate[dot]com (yes, that’s one ‘d’ in Wicked Delicate website. The one with two d’s is a Japanese puppy site)

Email me at jenny8lee[at]fortunecookiechronicles[dot]com for questions, comments, jokes.

You can enter your donation below, which will take you to Arts Engine system (the fiscal sponsor). Or you can enter directly on the Arts Engine page. The General and his chickens thank you!

Donation Amount (in $)

6% coverage

Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »

San Francisco Public Library Picks Fortune Cookie Chronicles for Its Book Club

By Jennifer 8. Lee | January 4, 2011

We’re San Francisco Public Library’s pick for January/February for their On the Same Page program, which is essentialy San Francisco’s bi-monthly book club. I’m speaking on February 19th in their Chinatown branch. Here are the details

Saturday, 2/19/2011, 2:30 – 4:00 p.m.
Chinatown Meeting Room
Chinatown
1135 Powell Street, San Francisco CA

Topics: Appearances, Book Club | No Comments »

Team General Tso in the Taipei Mountains

By Jennifer 8. Lee | December 23, 2010

From left to right:
Ian Cheney, director and co-producer
Curt Ellis, co-producer
Me, co-producer, and translator
Taylor Gentry, director of photography

We went up to get some panoramic shots for B-roll. This is a film (gasp) shot that Taylor took. It looks like Instagram. But it’s not. No filter to be had to do this. Just real skillz.

Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »

A photo collage from a reader, Kenneth Cronk

By Jennifer 8. Lee | December 23, 2010

The above image was submitted from a reader, Kenneth Cronk.

I did a photo-collage of one of my favorite Chinese Restaurants called Mee Mah. I mentioned this place in a previous email and you said you had never been there.
BUT – Isn’t that you I see sitting there? Sitting in front of those two ladies who were in Edward Hopper’s Chop Suey painting?
So you had been there, eh?

Ken (the guy who got “addicted” to your Fortune Cookie Chronicles book)

Topics: Reader Feedback | No Comments »