What I'm reading
As a dedicated foodie, I seek out not only food related mysteries, but also cookbooks and other novels/memoirs/etc. that focus on food and the culinary arts. I just finished Nicole Mones' The Last Chinese Chef , and I will never look at Chinese food the same way. What a pleasant read. Mones weaves a credible romantic plot with incredible insights into the history and philosophy of Chinese food. Food writer Maggie McElroy, a widowed American food writer, is suddenly confronted with a paternity claim against her late husband's estate--by a Chinese family claiming their granddaughter has inheritance rights. Maggie travels to Beijing with dual purposes: to write an article about a rising young Chinese-American-Jewish chef, Sam Liang, and to discover the truth of her husband's possible daughter. Along the way she meets much of Sam's family, including his Beijing uncles and the Hangzhou uncle -- a raucous, loving, argumentative bunch of foodies who advise Sam abo...