Chinese Food
« Previous Entries Next Entries »Book Forum Review: 80/20 or 75/25
Saturday, February 16th, 2008A thoughtful review in Book Forum written by Melanie Rehak (who wrote a very cool book on Nancy Drew called Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her). Review is mostly positive, with some apt criticisms. It think it’s like 80 percent favorable, 20 percent negative, or maybe 75/25. Overall, pretty good review. […]
Library of Congress confirmed for March 17th
Saturday, February 16th, 2008From Abby Yochelson: Monday, March 17th at 12:00 noon in the Mumford Room, 6th floor of the Madison Building, 101 Independence Avenue, SE. The program is being sponsored by the Humanities & Social Sciences Division, the Asian Division, and the Center for the Book. I am working on my Keynote presentation right now. It’s very […]
General Tso shares an issue with Maxim with a semi naked April Lavigne.
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008This is the March issue of Maxim magazine with my piece on the origins of General Tso’s chicken. For some reason I find this all very amusing. My research is sharing pages with “Why Women Secretly Love Porn.” (Why do we secretly love porn?) One of the cooler things they did was take pictures of […]
No justice, no egg rolls! Labor strife in Israel
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008Rebecca Harrison of Reuters as a fascinating account of how Israeli Asian restaurant workers went on a one-day spring roll strike to protest government policies to replace Asian restaurant workers with Israeli ones. You’d would think it’s an Onion article, except it’s real.
Maybe cupid likes Chinese food too?
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008Pink Valentine fortune cookies, now on sale for $4.97 for 50 instead of $7.95. Bargain! Perhaps you can also put them in Valentine’s takeout glitter boxes (also in pink and red), now slashed to $1.97 for a dozen.
So what is ‘authentic’ Chinese food anyway?
Sunday, February 10th, 2008Fred Ferretti, a food writer, has a critical piece in The New York Times op-ed page about the authenticity of Chinese food in America. (Ripping on Chinese food in America seems to be a resonant topic for The New York Times op-ed page/NYT Mag this year, see previous pieces by the Zagats, Nicole Mones and […]
So it’s Chinese New Year…Year of the Rat.
Thursday, February 7th, 2008A snippet from an IM conversation early today. Shawn: happy new year! do you celebrate it with family/friends? Me: not in the slightest. i’m more likely to go to seder for passover than celebrate chinese new year. (Hey, the Jewish-Chinese connection in New York goes both directions).
Is Super Bowl Sunday a National Patriotic Holiday
Monday, February 4th, 2008The Giants win. New York City rejoices. I watched the game at the home of my friend Eric (who is throwing my book party). The crowd was heavily mostly Asian/Chinese-Americanish, but the food was totally Super Bowl American –chili, wings, beer, nachoes, dip. When our parents get together, they don’t eat like this. In December […]
More on the Baghdad Chinese restaurant: no Sweet and Sour Pork
Friday, January 25th, 2008Media just loves the Chinese restaurant in Baghdad story. The Times of Lonndon also takes alook at the Chinese restaurant in Baghdad with a piece that is horribly headlined: “Chinese chefs take a wok on the wild side in world’s most dangerous city.” Tidbits we learn It is probably the only non-Iraqi restaurant — and […]
Even Hallmark is getting naughty with its fortune cookies
Friday, January 25th, 2008Timothy Layman sent this Hallmark Card link to me. For $4.99 you can get it personalized and mailed for you (no need to lick your own stamp!) Outside: “You will have much success and happiness.” Inside: “In bed. Happy Valentines Day.”
Read the The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner
Thursday, January 24th, 2008This is a plug, but a relevant one. Yesterday I went to a reading/presentation by Eric Weiner, the NPR resporter and author of Geography of Bliss, at the Rubin Museum in New York City. The Geography of Bliss is one of my favorite books of the last year. I was lucky to read an […]
Soy sauce packet, writ large
Thursday, January 24th, 2008This is just a random amusing shot of the cover of my book next to the Chinese takeout that we had for the the media luncheon last week. It’s very large and very orange. At this point I have talked about Chinese food in Boston, Washington, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Ann Arbor and New […]
Chinese restaurants return to Baghdad
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008h The security situation must be improving in Baghdad: A Chinese restaurant has opened in the Karrada neighborhood. (There had been several Chinese restaurants in Baghdad beforehand, including two in the Green Zone, but all of them they had closed down as security got worse and worse). Menu is limited, but it includes dumplings. And […]
Giving new meaning to “in bed” from fortune cookies. Chinese food pajamas
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008My friend, Rachel Metz, saw these Chinese-food themed pajamas on sale at Daffy’s in Brooklyn this weekend. It kinda makes you wonder, what designer thought: there must be people who love Chinese food so much, they want to sleep with it.
The long march of the fortune tea cake?
Monday, January 21st, 2008Barry Popik, a compiler of etymological origins and contributor to the Oxford English Dictionary, has a nice compilation of early citations in newspapers for “fortune tea cakes,” “Chinese fortune cakes,” “fortune cakes” (some of the last one I dispute refer to the modern day fortune cookies because they seem more related to the French galette […]
The cover design for fortune cookies.
Thursday, January 17th, 2008I woke up the morning my fortune cookie story ran with emails from friends that were like “awesome layout” and “great design.” As I had waited until late for the story to go online and read it only online, I had no idea what they were talking about. I actually didn’t see the paper until […]
Fortune Cookies are really from Japan.
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008So today I have a story in The New York Times that points, persuasively, that fortune cookies originate not from China, but from Japan. There is neat slideshow by Sylvia Rupani-Smith and video by Sean Patrick Farrell. This was probably the most surprising outcome from the research of my book, and it is one of […]
How did Japanese fortune cookies end up in Chinese restaurants?
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008So how did Japanese fortune cookies end up in Chinese restaurants? That’s a bit of a mystery. This is what we do know, based on interviews with fortune cookie makers and articles written around the time. Turns out it’s relatively easy to trace the path of fortune cookies back to World War II, when they […]
Even Colbert eats Chinese food! That means it’s American!
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008So my friends just IMed me to inform me that Stephen Colbert — author of I am America and You Can Too! — started out by eating Chinese takeout on his show tonight. Unclear what it has to do with the writers’ strike, but somehow that was the impetus. He ate lo mein (unsure if […]
What do you do with the fortunes you want to keep?
Sunday, January 13th, 2008So the biggest dilemma at the end of a Chinese meal: What do you do with a fortune cookie fortune you want to keep? Do you put it in your wallet? Do you tape it to your computer monitor or fridge? Do you collect them for a scrapbook project? Do yu stuff it in your […]
New York State raids Chinatown restaurants for illegal fish
Thursday, January 10th, 2008Elizabeth Dwoskin has a fascinating article this week in the Village Voice about New York State inspectors going around to Chinese restaurants fish tanks looking for illegally undersized tautog fish. (It’s illegal to catch one less than 14 inches long, but small fish are often considered more tender by the Chinese diners).
Two more readings, one in Boston (well really Cambridge) and one in Los Angeles (well, really Pasadena)
Thursday, January 10th, 2008Cary Goldstein just let me know that we have two more appearances tentatively scheduled. Harvard Book Store (they were smart to get harvard.com!) on March 20 and Vroman’s in Pasadena on the 27th. Still more West Coast stuff and DC stuff to nail down.
This little piggy went to market. This little piggy stayed at home. This little piggy went to dim sum…and ended up roasted
Monday, January 7th, 2008These two pigs were spotted in Jing Fong in New York City’s Chinatown after dim sum with friends (one who said “Ooh! Make sure to get the Christmas tree in the background). Given that Americans don’t like to reminded their food ever ran, swam, flew or breathed, this would probably not go over well with […]
Training chopsticks at CB2, kinda like training wheels?
Monday, January 7th, 2008I saw these at the new CB2 (i.e. Crate and Barrel 2) in Soho last week. (Hard to believe now, but Crate and Barrel was once a young hippish low-cost homewear retailer. But as their customers grew up, so did Crate and Barrel, which is why they’re aiming at the younger demographic with CB2). I […]
The best dim sum chef in New York? Joe Ng of Chinatown Brasserie
Saturday, January 5th, 2008So this morning I woke up for a photo shoot for a magazine which is going to excerpt The Fortune Cookie Chronicles (yay! though why they want a fancy photo of the author to go with the excerpt, I’m not so clear about.) The photographer they assigned was Melanie Dunea, who has done an impressive […]
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