Last week I got a recommendation for a book from a friend and went to the library to get the book, only to discover that I'd already read it. (In my defense, I realized it by page 35, I read a lot of books, and it was four years ago that I first read this one.) At any rate, I remembered liking to book back then, so I thought I'd give it another go 'round.
Had I been doing the Friday Book Blog in 2007, I probably would have picked it, but since I wasn't, I'll pick it now. Nicole Mones' The Last Chinese Chef is a gorgeous, almost-sensual look at traditional Chinese cooking and how the traditional past and the complicated future can be combined with poetry and grace. The story of the American widow, Maggie, and the young half-Chinese chef, Sam, serves to draw the worlds in contrast and still meld them perfectly in a mouth-watering feast.
When I say mouth-watering, I mean it. At times, I was actually salivating while reading the desription of the dishes. And I liked how the food had almost a healing power over Maggie. Also, the relationship that develops does not feel contrived.
I liked Mones' Lost in Translation, but I think this one is less surface and more substance.
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