NYT: On Springfield’s Chinese Cashew Chicken
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 11, 2009
John T. Edge writes a detailed historical piece on Cashew chicken, Springfield, Missouri-style, which basically means it uses deep-fried breaded chicken chunks.
It’s Colonel Sanders meets General Tso! (+ Cashews).
Again it makes the point that David Leong (who is now 88), was a single innovator who came up with the dish some 50 years ago. Then others copied him and copied him and copied him. (Though mostly in the Springfield, St. Louis, Kansas City area.
This echoes my point about the open-source model for Chinese food.
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
Powerhouse Has Great Marketing
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 9, 2009
The Fortune Cookie Chronicles party on Wednesday has been picked up in Time Out New York (both food and books sections), The Village Voice and The New York Post, Brooklyn Paper etc.
Kudos to Susanne König and her team.
Topics: Appearances | No Comments »
Randomly Cute Kid Pic of My Sister in Kinmen
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 7, 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 with an abacus in Kinmen.
Topics: Photo | No Comments »
Here is the Martha Stewart Segment!
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 3, 2009
I love how everything is online these days. Here is the Martha Stewart turkey dumplings segment from last week.
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
Busy Weekend. Talks in Princeton, St. Louis and Toledo
By Jennifer 8. Lee | February 27, 2009
Lots of talks this weekend and lots of early morning flights. Just did a talk at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (which is like a university with no students, and host to Albert Einstein, John von Neumann, Kurt Gödel and J. Robert Oppenheimer)
I spoke as part of the Cuisine & Culture lecture series which is usually by culinary historians and anthropologists. About 75 people (which they said was a good showing). They had yummy duck spring rolls and dim summy things for the cocktail party.
I saw my camp counselors, who I hadn’t seen in like 15 years or so: Noah Zatz and Jessica Catellino, now both professors and visiting scholars in Princeton (one at the Institute, one at the University).
I also sat next to someone at dinner who said he’d been to a wedding where Bill Gates had served as “second usher.”
Topics: Appearances | No Comments »
Did Martha Stewart Today!
By Jennifer 8. Lee | February 25, 2009
Two segments. One on Chinese food in America. One on fried turkey dumplings. Lenore Welby produced really smart segments.
Impressions when I first walked into studios on West 26th Street. Metal detector. Lots of rolls of ribbons. Washer dryer. Huge kitchens. Nine Emmys lined up in conference room. “MARTHA” is all over the place. A lot of staff (not just hair and makeup, but also sound, lighting, camera, many kitchen people including one who seemed to focus on plating food). It is a well-honed machine. They would demand two stools and the stools would just magically appear.
Topics: Media & Interviews | No Comments »
Going to be on martha stewart show tomorrow…at 10 a.m.
By Jennifer 8. Lee | February 24, 2009
To make turkey dumplings!
Topics: Appearances, Media & Interviews | No Comments »
powerHouse party in DUMBO March 11, 7-9pm
By Jennifer 8. Lee | February 19, 2009
Okay here is the invite (click to get full size version). Details: March 11, 2009. 7-9 p.m. 37 Main Street in Brooklyn (which is Dumbo). rsvp@powerhousearena.com. Sarah Murray is chatting with me.
Topics: Appearances | No Comments »
March 11 Book Party at Powerhouse Books
By Jennifer 8. Lee | February 13, 2009
powerHouse Books in Brooklyn is going to throw my paperback launch on March 11. But it includes a DJ (!). They have a huge 10,000 space in Dumbo (or is it DUMBO, can’t remember if they like it all capitalized.)
As Publishers Weekly noted recently, the indy bookseller/publisher bucked a trend in that it has seen a jump in revenue of 33% over the past year.
That’s because they operate more as an event space/cultural hub than as a staid bookseller. So their events are more like party-parties than book readings.
More details later. Coincidentally, it’s around the same time as my birthday (March 15), so maybe it will double as an unofficial bday party.
Topics: Appearances | No Comments »
Speaking in Salem (Where the Taxi Logo is a Witch on a Broomstick!)
By Jennifer 8. Lee | February 12, 2009
Gave a talk at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts today, which has an amazing collection of Chinese art — in large part because Salem was a shipping capital with China. It also has a Qing Dynasty Chinese house, Yin Yu Tang, which is famously and painstakingly disassembled and reassembled in the museum.
But of course Salem is famous for its witch fame, which it embraces with good humor. The taxi that took me to the airport arrived and I was amused to discover that its logo was a witch on a broomstick.
Topics: Appearances | No Comments »
Globe and Mail: A New Greatest Chinese Restaurant? Hakkasan outside Vancouver
By Jennifer 8. Lee | February 5, 2009
This Globe and Mail piece from a few months ago highlights Hakkasan in Vancouver (not to be confused with Alan Yau’s über-sexy, Michelin-starred Hakkasan restaurant in London, which I also went to). Richmond is also where I had chosen the greatest restaurant in the world (now shuttered) Zen Fine Chinese cuisine.
The sister of Sam Lau of Zen has opened a new restaurant with her daughters Yvonne and Stephanie Wong. In addition to several tasting menus ($48 to $98 a person), the kitchen offers a full range of à la carte items, most plated on traditional sharing platters.
Hakkasan Contemporary
Chinese Cuisine: 110 – 2188
No. 5 Rd., Richmond, B.C.;
604-273-9191
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
I’m Up Before the Sunrise at the TED Conference
By Jennifer 8. Lee | February 4, 2009
I’m at the TED conference in Long Beach, Calif. and because I have had to become an early riser on the East Coast to do Morning Buzz, I was up at like 5 a.m. this morning, Way before sunlight. A number of people had read The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, so I was touched. And some had seen my TED talk, which was really at Taste 3, but taped by TED’s Jason Wishnow (who got a nice shoutout in Virginia Heffernan’s column in the NYT Mag about how she’s addicted to TED talks).
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
The Chinese Restaurant Workers’ View of America: Through Area Codes. Chinatown Bus Ads
By Jennifer 8. Lee | February 2, 2009
These two are Chinatown bus advertisements for routes that go to the more obscure regions of the eastern United States. (Chinatown bus goes all over, not just Boston, NYC, Philly and Washington). Notice how they emphasize the area codes.
That is because many Fujianese restaurant workers are not educated and thus don’t really read and write English. Given that. How do you divide the United States? Not through towns and states. You do it through numbers — hence the area codes. As I wrote in a piece in 2005, job listings in Chinatown employment agencies are often done by area code.
I actually took a Chinatown bus from New York City to Minneapolis as part of my book research via Chicago. There is a terminal on East Broadway — which is a modest (modest) version of Port Authority. Note the red, white, and blue bags. The worldwide symbol for long distance travel. The interesting thing is that not everyone was Chinese. There were a few non-Chinese (I wonder how they heard about it)
The bus system oddly works as an alternative UPS ground service for restaurant menus. These are being shipped from Chinatown (which is a hub for Chinese restaurant printing west of the Mississippi). Notice how colorful and flashy these are, a mark of Fujianese-owned Chinese restaurants.
Random shot of the Ohio turnpike. Somewhere in Ohio at like a gas station/rest stop in the early morning, the bus stopped and a bunch of people got off and ended up hopping into vans destined for random Ohio places.
Random Chinese restaurant worker in the van from Chicago to Minneapolis. Chinese people are very good at taking loooong rides. It’s what they do in China all the time (on buses or trains).
Topics: Chinese Food, Chinese Restaurants, Fujianese, Immigration | No Comments »
General Tso in a Bottle
By Jennifer 8. Lee | January 27, 2009
I was in a kitchen today and saw a bottle of Iron Chef’s General Tso’s Sauce and Glaze. It was a bit too sweet, and not spicy enough. Nonetheless. You can get General Tso in a bottle!
Topics: General Tso | No Comments »
Splendid Table and Fortune Cookies
By Jennifer 8. Lee | January 27, 2009
My interview on Splendid Table [mp3] by American Public Media ran on NPR stations last week. (I recorded it back in December). They are broadcast in 299 stations, but sadly not in Manhattan, al though they are carried on WCWP 88.1 FM which covers some areas of Queens and the Bronx.
Topics: Media & Interviews | No Comments »
Happy Lunar New Year!
By Jennifer 8. Lee | January 26, 2009
Happy Year of the Ox (my parents’ birth year). For whatever reason, all the news outlets feel that they obligatory shot of cute Asian kids and dancing dragons. Often times Chinese holiday imagery can be boiled to cute kids, old people, dancing dragons and firecrackers.
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
LAT: Bringing Fortune Cookies into the 21st Century.
By Jennifer 8. Lee | January 26, 2009
A Los Angeles Times columnist, Gregory Rodriguez, writes about Kenny Yee, who bought one of L.A.’s four Chinese fortune cookie factories. (Good luck, the margins are awful.) I wonder which four there are. There is Amay, Peking Noodle, now-defunct Hong Kong Noodle…which else.
I’m a bit sad about this part of his piece.
I hate to break it to you if you don’t already know, but fortune cookies aren’t from China. Depending on which story you believe, they were invented right here in Los Angeles by a Chinese-born noodle manufacturer, or in San Francisco by a Japanese immigrant who tended the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. Either way, they’re a California invention that dates back to before World War I — classical Californiana.
He doesn’t even acknowledge the thesis that fortune cookies are very likely from Japan. And even if he didn’t read that New York Times piece, another columnist in his own paper, Steve Harvey, wrote about my book and the Japanese origins last June. 🙁
Topics: Fortune Cookies | No Comments »
About Time I Got Out of That Cookie
By Jennifer 8. Lee | January 22, 2009
This is the most hysterical fortune that someone at my talk at the Richmond Jewish Community Center (which has a water slide!). Those people over Wonton Food are getting quite frisky.
Topics: Fortune Cookies | No Comments »
Richmond Times-Dispatch: Looking for General Tso
By Jennifer 8. Lee | January 15, 2009
Bill Lohmann of the Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote a fun cover article about my upcoming talk at the Richmond JCC.
The JCC said they never get this type of coverage, so maybe they should invite food authors more often. usually it’s just a blurb.
Billactually did the interview when I was in Miami on the way to the national college football championship game (Go Gators!). My favorite quote used in the story is this:
“I think Chinese people have the feeling,” she said, “the harder you work to eat your food, the more fulfilling it is.”
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
Man Date in the Bromance Comedy, I Love You Man
By Jennifer 8. Lee | January 13, 2009
This new film I Love You Man (Dreamworks out March 20), is basically one long series of man dates. Sensitive, Emo-centric Peter (Paul Rudd) who finds himself distraught on the eve of his proposal finds that he has no male friends to be his best man.
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
Tonight. Talk at the University Club @ 5 p.m.
By Jennifer 8. Lee | January 13, 2009
Today. Talk at The University Club. I can’t believe I’m still giving talks. (This is my third event this month! Oy. I have like three more to go — Charlotte, Denver, Denver). I think four in February. Then the paperback is out in March.
Topics: Appearances | No Comments »
Jan. 11, 92nd Street Y, with David Chang and Steven Shaw
By Jennifer 8. Lee | January 10, 2009
I’m doing an event Sunday at the 92nd Street Y with David Chang (of Momofuku fame) and Steven Shaw (of eGullet) called Asian Dining Rules. Get it? Asian Dining…Rules (verb), or Asian…Dining Rules (noun). Here is the description.
David Chang, Jennifer 8. Lee and Steven Shaw
Mike Colameco, moderator
Book signing to follow.
Join in a wide-ranging discussion of the past, present and future of Asian dining in America, and learn how you can order like an insider at any Asian restaurant. David Chang is the chef/owner of the phenomenally successful Momofuku restaurants: Ssam Bar, Noodle Bar and Ko. He recently received the James Beard Award for Best Chef in New York City. Jennifer 8. Lee is a metropolitan reporter at The New York Times and the author of The Fortune Cookie Chronicles. Steven Shaw is the author of Asian Dining Rules and the director of eGullet.org. Moderator Mike Colameco is host of Food Talk on WWOR.
I remember eating at Momofuku back in 2005 with a friend of mine from the Times. Back then it was relatively obscure. Not anymore.
Topics: Appearances | No Comments »
Good-bye 2008, Hello 2009!
By Jennifer 8. Lee | January 5, 2009
We are back! Happy 2009. In many ways 2008 was a good year (book, Olympics, loml). But it was, due to implosion of economy, also a sad year. Let’s see what happens.
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
Men at Wok
By Jennifer 8. Lee | December 31, 2008
Met at Work Chinese Restaurant in Brooklyn
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.
Topics: Chinese Restaurants, Photo, Quirky | No Comments »
Elvis Wok, Featuring a Chinese Elvis, the “King of Wok n Roll”
By Jennifer 8. Lee | December 27, 2008
Elvis Wok in London, featuring a Chinese Elvis by Steve Taylor
This was sent to me after my TED talk went up. Amusing.
Topics: Quirky | No Comments »