Grace Young

Continuing my habit of reading cookbooks straight through like other books (and often not actually cooking anything from them), The Breath of a Wok goes beyond recipes and is informative on the history, purposes, and methods of wok cookery. Wok cooking is again something that I probably should be familiar with but am not- my mom cooks with one periodically, but I never really learned how to cook.

Things I learned:
-that Northern and Cantonese styles are different (a long handle vs two ear handles respectively)
-that traditional woks have a round bottom, which requires a specialty stove or rings over a range if you live with a western range.
-Overcrowding the wok will lead to things getting soggy.

There are definitely doable recipes in here, and though it's from 2005 and some ingredients are mentioned as likely needing to come from Asian markets/specialty stores, I feel like some things may be more readily available here in 2020 (sort of. April 2020 is a weird time and places may or may not be open...) I'm curious about the status of dai pai dong (food market stalls) Young was searching for at the beginning of the book now- are people more wary of them now, or have they modified and continued to thrive?… (more)

This is a nice cookbook written by a Chinese American lady. She gives a lot of history and has chapters such as "New Year's Foods and Traditions". I almost put the book down after one of the first chapters as it has recipes for frog even. I was afraid it was going to be a little too authentic for me, but I'm glad I kept going. There are some great recipes, pictures of ingredients to help you find them, chapters on eating for health and shopping tips along with information on the history and tradition of certain foods. Most of the recipes are involved, but there are some simple one's also. You might want to check it out of the library before deciding to buy.… (more)