It’s been an overwhelming week of dumplings as people rev up for the Lunar New Year, Chinese New Year, Vietnamese Tet – however way you’d like to call one of the biggest Asian holidays. We’re looking at Valentine’s Day as THE date to welcome the Year of the Tiger. Dumplings are typically a central element on Chinese menus, and with the book being out, many people want to get cooking doughy Asian morsels.
I was thrilled to see an outpouring of interest by the following people: (if I missed you, send me a message)
Christine Yue Gallary and Eric Slatkin, CHOW.com: I've been working with CHOW since last fall on a few projects involving video and recipes. This past week, it all came together in one giant post called "Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year, Together at Last". Just in time for the New Year!
Nathan Lau of House of Annie: Asian Dumplings inspired Nate to master rolling out own dumpling wrappers. With practice, he’s become a pro! Hurray! If you’re challenged by the text instructions in Asian Dumplings, watch the new instructional video I posted on that very basic technique.
Jacqueline Church: Jackie was so excited about the book coming out. She embarked on adventures to an H-Mart Asian grocery store, then went repeated rounds with making her own dumplings in order to master Asian dumpling techniques. If I could give Jackie a certificate of achievement, I would! Through that experience, she wrote a lovely review of Asian Dumplings on Suite101.com.
Grace Niwa and Jaden Hair, NewAsianCuisine.com: I have known these two women for several years, and now they have joined forces on Grace’s site devoted to Asian cooking. The revamped, snazzy site debuted this week and I was delighted to have the Japanese shrimp and pork gyoza recipe from Asian Dumplings be part of their new partnership. Go Asian gals!
Kristina Gill: Goodness, while she was in Italy (her place of residence), we communicated about Asian Dumplings. She asked for an exclusive recipe and I obliged. Today, Kristina posted my poached vegan tofu and vegetable wonton in spicy oil at Design Sponge, and surprised me by including Asian Dumplings in her new cookbook column launch at Mattbites.com.
Finally, there was a very thoughtful review by Tom Witcom of Lake County Journals in Illinois. I know I’ve done my job as a cookbook author when it’s not just the coasts that find my work engaging, but also people across the country.
Hope you have an enjoyable, dumpling-filled weekend, wherever you may be.