Thanks again to Ann and her mom for recommending another excellent book that I had missed. Here's how amazon.com describes the plot, more succinctly than I could:
"When Maggie McElroy, a widowed American food writer, learns of a Chinese paternity claim against her late husband’s estate, she has to go immediately to Beijing. She asks her magazine for time off, but her editor counters with an assignment: to profile the rising American culinary star, Sam Liang.
"In China Maggie unties the knots of her husband’s past, finding out more than she expected about him and about herself. With Sam as her guide, she is also drawn deep into a world of food rooted in centuries of history and philosophy. To her surprise she begins to be transformed by the cuisine, by Sam’s family, and most of all by Sam himself. The Last Chinese Chef is the exhilarating story of a woman regaining her soul in the most unexpected of places."
It's a travel book, a bit of a mystery (Is her husband really the child's father?), a story of grief and friendship and love, all around wonderful descriptions of Chinese food and cooking.
I liked the author's painless delivery of some Chinese history and culture, too, and learned about the changes of the Cultural Revolution in the 60's, followed by the Communist government.
I'm not a "foodie" but liked this book very much--a many-faceted plot that just flows, and multi-cultural characters who were believable and likable.
Comments