Cookaholics Bulletin Board

I thoroughly enjoyed this work of fiction which includes many real restaurants and recipes which may be found on her web site http://www.nicolemones.com/. Has anyone cooked any of these? When I was in Houston I did locate the dried lotus leaves for the rib recipe and I will be trying it after I return from this week in San Diego.

I just put this in my cart at aubible, I've heard such good things about it. Thanks for the review.

Mary

Thanks for the info Wino...I am always looking for a good read involving food!

Ilene,

How much of the book is about the food, and how much about the widow-and-dead-husband's-pecadilloes? I'm a lot more interested in the former than the latter.

Ahhh, good to see you back, Grasshopper

Fuzzy
I'll enjoy both.....nothing wrong with a little pulp fiction every now and then.
ilene

Oh, sorry. It was wino who's read it. Wino?

Sorry, I thought your question was a fine example of your subtle humor and not truly 'dead' serious'

The main story concerns Americans in China for a variety of reasons with paths crossing but it becomes focussed on a cooking competition to select Chinese members of a team to showcase Chinese cooking to a larger audience. (I'm trying not to spoil the story.) Along the way various personalities arise that have or have had cooking fame throughout various cities in China (hence you learn about real restaurants and real dishes). It is well written, intriguing, and made me scour Houston to find dried lotus leaves!! Her web site contains names of American restaurants that serve some of the dishes and some recipes.

Wino,

Sounds sufficiently masculine for me.

Seriously, the one drawback to the current rash of food+travel writing in print is that a fair number of books are themed on the "midlife crisis, with food" pattern. Those I'm trying to avoid; if I'm not having a midlife crisis of my own, I don't want to read about someone elses.

Speaking of which: so how many people on the list had a midlife crisis? And how many of those involved food?

Oh, I’m gonna luv Frank’s response…

We were fortunate to be able to plan our mid-life crises; deciding to sequentially quit working for someone else and establishing our own businesses over a period of about 2 years. This allowed us financial stability as the first person figured out that it had been the right choice and that that choice could support the second person when the time came. That was 20 years ago and the gods have been kind… However, we both love to cook and as much as possible we try to get together 3x/day to take a break and munch. We consider ourselves to be very fortunate! Food is key to most of our get togethers (oh yeah, and lots of wine!!)