I went home for long visits to cook with my parents. This time together was a gift for all of us. It was in the course of researching the book that I discovered the evocative old photographs of our family in China that are included in the book. Nothing compares to knowing how to cook your own family's recipes. Even though I have cooked every kind of cuisine, nothing equals the experience of duplicating the taste of my mother's cooking.
Tasted memory is such an important experience to cherish.
So often we take for granted what we grew up with. I encourage all my friends to take time to learn their family's recipes for it is an empowering experience. I now cook many of my childhood favorite recipes and I believe that home cooking nourishes the soul. Many of my relatives are quite elderly, so their cooking reflects a very traditional style of Chinese cooking, one that was in many ways lost during the Cultural Revolution in china. All my relatives are wonderful home-style cooks, and since no one of my generation had really taken the time to learn their recipes, most of the recipes were at risk of being lost.