The Fortune Cookie Chronicles


  • #26 on the New York Times Best Seller List
    and featured on The Colbert Report, Martha Stewart, TED.com, CNN, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Charlie Rose Tomorrow, Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly, and NPR stations coast to coast. Also selected for Borders Original Voices and Book Sense. Follow me on Twitter! Fan me on Facebook.

  • Photo

    Sometimes You Just Need a Picture of a Dog

    Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

    This picture was sent to me by Roy Zuckerman. It is Lola from Basel, and she is apparently a big fan of my book.

    Randomly Cute Kid Pic of My Sister in Kinmen

    Saturday, March 7th, 2009

    As part of my appearance on Martha Stewart, they asked me to scan in old family photos (which really hadn’t been scanned in before) in case they wanted to show them with the turkey dumpling recipe. So that kicked my parents into the digital age. Among those scanned: this random photo of my sister playing […]

    Men at Wok

    Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

    This is another hilarious name for Chinese restaurant, courtesy of Michael Epstein. I still think Wok n Roll is still better, but getting cliched. This one is located in Brooklyn, though apparently there are others: one in Williston, Vermont and one in Lebanon, New Hampshire.

    Pictures from My Appearance on The Colbert Report

    Thursday, August 28th, 2008

    Here (finally) are some pictures from The Colbert Report when I appeared on March 4, 2008. (Thanks to Alexis Ohanian for taking them and for backing them up because I lost the memory card on which they were stored, so I’m actually putting them on the blog so I wont lose them.) And yes, the […]

    A Fortune Cookie Chronicles book club at the Fortune Cookie Chronicles Powerball Restaurant

    Wednesday, August 6th, 2008

    This is very adorable. I got a great email leading me to the photo above. “I’m the organizer for my neighborhood’s book club. We read your book last month and then ate at King Buffet, which is one of the fortune cookie winning restaurants here in Lawrence, Kansas.” The photo is of them holding up […]

    Fortune Cookie Chronicles in Accra, Ghana

    Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

    Yay. Fortune Cookie Chronicles hits sub-Saharan Africa before I do (I have only been to Mauritius). Sent to me by a fan. This is the independence monument with Kwame Nkrumah, pan-Africanist.

    A Chinese Restaurant in Venice (with a boat docked out front)

    Sunday, May 4th, 2008

    My friend Kathleen took a photo of this Chinese restaurant in Venice for me (love the boat out front).

    Genghis Cohen…this tops Shalom Hunan even.

    Monday, March 31st, 2008

    Oh my god. When I saw this, I made Josh turn the car around so I could take a picture of Genghis Cohen (which opened in 1983 as a Chinese restaurant, but also now serves as an acoustic lounge). The Jewish-Chinese connection marches on.

    The Library of Congress Flyer

    Monday, March 17th, 2008

    I know, if I had my act together, I would have posted this before the event at the Library of Congress. But notice the iconic use of fortune cookies (which are more recognized in America than anywhere else)

    My book on world tour (well…only to the UK)

    Saturday, November 24th, 2007

    So my galley went on a trip to the UK and friends sent me a photo of my book galley from Oxford… It also went to Scotland (and maybe Wales too? actually I think it skipped Wales) on this trip. (Btw. I used Splashup.com to edit it online. Amazing. It’s Photoshop in your browser)

    And maybe that 7-11 clerk is actually an anthrax specialist too

    Monday, October 15th, 2007

    I saw this sign while driving through Kansas hunting Chinese restaurants.

    The scene of an accident. I wonder how the owner felt.

    Tuesday, October 9th, 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.  

    The fortune cookie writer is getting a little saucy…

    Friday, August 17th, 2007

    This fortune found on Flickr shows that the fortune cookie scribe was running out of ideas, no?

    General Tso’s Kitten? Only if He Misbehaves

    Thursday, June 28th, 2007

    My friend Jennifer sent me a picture of her cat named General Tso! I’m sure the Qing Dynasty Chinese warrior would be amused to learn that he has pets named after him overseas more than a century after his death (yes he actually existed, watch this blog for more details. I’ve even met his family, […]

    I <3 flickr wordpress widgets

    Tuesday, June 19th, 2007

    I just installed Josh Gerdes’ SimpleFlickr Plugin to display Chinese restaurant photos from Flickr and it was breathtakingly easy. When I saw the line of code I was suppose to drop into the page, I thought, “Is that it? That can’t be it.” It took maybe 10 minutes and it comes back with this beautiful […]