Rating: 
Summary: A "Family" Recipe
Review: A friend of mine shared this book with me - and after reading the first two pages I knew I had to have it. I am a remarried ex-NBA player and I find I enjoy cooking for the family. When my 11 year old daughter tries to help in the kitchen I inevitably end up shooing her out of the way because she is messing up my kitchen. In those first two pages Ellen and Annabel showed me that by sharing rather than shooing, I can enrich my life and connection to my child in a way that is fun for the both of us. I may never cook a lot of chinese food in my house, but the authors shared an important family recipe that I will always treasure. Greg Smith
Rating:
Summary: Getting in touch with my roots
Review: After having moved away from home for a number of years, I started to realize and appreciate the important role of food to Chinese culture, family and traditions. Much to my chagrin, I had learned very little about the Chinese family kitchen while growing up. While I was nourished by the comfort foods my mother and aunts had made for us, I had very little knowledge of the mechanics of producing these offerings of love.
Blonder and Low have done an impressive job of bringing back to the memories of my childhood, where food plays such a central role in Chinese family life. I have tried many of the recipes in this book and most of them have turned out just the way I recall my mother making them.
And most of all, the stories and anecdotes demonstrate how Every Grain of Rice inextricably links culture and food to Chinese traditions. The authors recall momentous occasions such as Chinese New Year and donning their "best" clothes; the excitement of receiving little red "luy see".
This book is all about comfort foods. It's about home cooking in the Chinese family. You will rarely find these dishes in a restaurant. My cousin was looking through this book and disdainfully noted how the recipes were so "chop suey". I don't know if his description is correct, but you will rarely find these dishes in a restaurant. Perhaps he was comparing it to the sometimes over-complicated and sophisticated, "gourment-style" Chinese cookbooks. It is certainly not that. It is purely about childhood memories of growing up Chinese in North America.
Rating:
Summary: Getting in touch with my roots
Review: After having moved away from home for a number of years, I started to realize and appreciate the important role of food to Chinese culture, family and traditions. Much to my chagrin, I had learned very little about the Chinese family kitchen while growing up. While I was nourished by the comfort foods my mother and aunts had made for us, I had very little knowledge of the mechanics of producing these offerings of love.
Blonder and Low have done an impressive job of bringing back to the memories of my childhood, where food plays such a central role in Chinese family life. I have tried many of the recipes in this book and most of them have turned out just the way I recall my mother making them.
And most of all, the stories and anecdotes demonstrate how Every Grain of Rice inextricably links culture and food to Chinese traditions. The authors recall momentous occasions such as Chinese New Year and donning their "best" clothes; the excitement of receiving little red "luy see".
This book is all about comfort foods. It's about home cooking in the Chinese family. You will rarely find these dishes in a restaurant. My cousin was looking through this book and disdainfully noted how the recipes were so "chop suey". I don't know if his description is correct, but you will rarely find these dishes in a restaurant. Perhaps he was comparing it to the sometimes over-complicated and sophisticated, "gourment-style" Chinese cookbooks. It is certainly not that. It is purely about childhood memories of growing up Chinese in North America.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best chinese cookbooks I've seen.
Review: As an Irish American woman married to a Chinese American man, I found the stories delightful and the recipes helpful. I too have spent time in the kitchen with my in-laws watching them cook, wondering how they arrive at such wonderfully delicious flavors. I am glad to own a book that will help me duplicate such flavors and help my children learn how to cook chinese food.
Rating: 
Summary: Impress Your Friends
Review: As the Caucasian parent of children adopted from Asia, I'm always interested in cookbooks that offer a healthy dose of cultural ed along with the recipes. This one does both things beautifully -- I have enjoyed the stories and the pictures very much. I have also made dozens of the included recipes, always with excellent results. (Living in an urban center with easy access to Chinese ingredients helps, but the difficulty level of many of these dishes is not as high as with some other Asian cookbooks I own, and should not be too scary even for beginning cooks.) The ultimate endorsement has to come from Chinese-American friends at the weekend school I attend with one of my kids. After having some of them over for a Lunar New Year party and serving the soy sauce chicken, steamed whole fish, and several other dishes from the book, I have gained a small reputation at the school as "that white woman who can cook Chinese food." The following year I made the steamed New Year's Cake (nian gao, in Mandarin) and took it to weekend school. Two of the faculty actually asked me for the recipe. I vow that one day soon I'm going to get the bamboo leaves out of my freezer, gird my loins, and cook up a batch of those time-consuming Jeng. Authors Ellen and Annabel have convinced me that the results might just be worth the effort.
Rating:
Summary: A real treat!
Review: Delicious Chinese recipes interwoven with Ellen's and Annabel's stories about their Chinese American life and beautifully illustrated by Ellen's watercolors. I have tried the siu mei, oyster beef and broccoli, pan fried prawns with ketchup sauce, chicken in foil, and the almond cookies. They were all doable and crowd-pleasers.
Rating:
Summary: A real treat!
Review: Delicious Chinese recipes interwoven with Ellen's and Annabel's stories about their Chinese American life and beautifully illustrated by Ellen's watercolors. I have tried the siu mei, oyster beef and broccoli, pan fried prawns with ketchup sauce, chicken in foil, and the almond cookies. They were all doable and crowd-pleasers.
Rating:
Summary: This book rocks!
Review: Great little stories but the REAL gems are the recipes. Not only do they work, they also deliver in the flavor department! I've been looking for a good char sui pork recipe since I was a teen. I've tried a bunch and I've been burned by them all, except the recipe in this book. Fabulous (and it freezes well too!) Great book.
Rating:
Summary: Grandmom's recipes -
Review: Great stories, wonderful food! This book is not meant to be an all-encompassing guide to Chinese cooking or a "dazzle the guests" dinner party menu book. It's about comfort food. I own a shelf full of Chinese cooking books, but none contain some of the simple recipes I found in this book. The recipes are for the sort of everyday dishes that Grandmom made during our infrequent visits when I was little. Since she rarely used recipes, the knowledge died with her. What a pleasure it was to find some of her dishes in this book!
Rating: 
Summary: I WAS GREATLY DISAPPOINTED WITH THIS BOOK.
Review: I don't understand why old stories are mixed with recipes that don't sound very appealing. If they wanted to write about their childhood and tell old stories, perhaps they should have done an autobiography or novel.
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