My first book, Sichuan Cookery (published in the US as Land of Plenty), was chosen by the Observer Food Monthly as one of the ten best cookbooks of all time! Crazy, but delightful!
Books
I was one of the food-writers invited by the Guardian to choose ‘The Best Food Books of the Decade’… and when they published the list today I discovered that the other panellists had put my first book, Sichuan Cookery (published in the US as Land of Plenty) in the Top Ten! What an honour.
There’s a piece of mine in the Financial Times Weekend today, about the wonderful restaurants of Hangzhou.
And a mention of the paperback of ‘Shark’s Fin’ in the latest New York Times Book Review.
‘Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper’ has been chosen as the first book featured by the international ex-pat wing of the Daily Telegraph’s website. This is great, except that the discussion so far has been hijacked by people who haven’t read the book, but accuse me of promoting the consumption of shark’s fin!
If they did read the book, of course, they’d discover that there’s a whole chapter about the damage caused by the consumption of bits of endangered species, including shark’s fin.
It’s very weird – the very mention of shark’s fin seems to be a kind of trigger for outrage. This has happened to me before online, and I do wonder if some people do a kind of websearch for the term ‘shark’s fin’, and then automatically post furious messages, without troubling themselves to find out what is actually being said.
Hmm.
The official publication date of the US paperback version of ‘Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper’ is 25th August, but it’s already available on Amazon.com…
My latest book, ‘Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper’, has just received The Jane Grigson Award from the IACP (International Association of Culinary Professionals’!
Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper has been shortlisted for a James Beard Award for Writing and Literature, and by the IACP (International Association of Culinary Professionals) for the Cuisinart Literary Food Writing award.
I’ve received quite a few emails from visitors to this site telling me that in the later printings of Sichuan Cookery (published in the US as Land of Plenty), I promise to post information about suppliers on this website. I’m embarrassed to say that I had completely forgotten about this, but I can see that it would be useful for anyone trying my recipes. So I’ll try to start on this fairly soon. I’ll only be able to list suppliers for Londoners at the moment, but perhaps if I post details of some favourite brands, those of you living outside London will be able to find them in your own, local Chinese supermarkets. And of course any of you can contribute to the post by leaving comments.
Please be patient, and apologies for not having posted the relevant information before!
Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper was mentioned by Bee Wilson in her round-up of the year’s best food books in the Sunday Times this weekend. And Sam and Sam Clark of the Moro restaurant in London say they’ve been reading my Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook.
Nice to see that the Independent newspaper in Britain has included Sichuan Cookery (published in the US as ‘Land of Plenty’) in its list of the 50 best cookbooks.
