The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook: Home Cooking from Asian American Kitchens
"If you missed out sitting by your grandmother’s stove, or your family ethnicity doesn’t happen to match the food you know you were born to eat, Patricia Tanumihardja’s book goes a long way toward addressing that need. "a charming book." --The Boston HeraldEncompassing Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, Vietnamese and Indian  grandmothers, The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook: Home Cooking from Asian  Kitchens by Patricia Tanumihardja (Sasquatch, Oct.) features 130 recipes  the author culled from Asian grandmas. The author, a food writer who  unfortunately never knew her grandmothers, was nonetheless drawn to  writing about Asian grandmothers' recipes, finding that grandmas tend to  be keepers of the cultural--and culinary--flame. "In Asian cultures,  you tend to have three generations living under one roof," Tanumihardja  says. Grandmothers play a role of "passing on the culture and roots to  their grandchildren." None of them cook with recipes, Tanumihardja  found. "It was a pinch of this a dash of that." Although the women  Tanumihardja talked to use flavors ranging from ginger to hot chilies,  curries and vinegars, their food tends to be hearty and vibrantly  flavored. And soy sauce seems to be ubiquitous. --Publishers Weekly,  August 31, 2009A new book deliciously weaves together generations-old recipes--and the  stories of the women who cook them--in The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook:  Home Cooking from Asian Kitchens (Sasquatch Books, 2009). Patricia  Tanumihardja, an Indonesian Chinese with her own memories of Asian  cooking, has documented a number of family recipes--many of them in  print for the first time ever--complete with insider tips from the  grandmothers she cooked with. The book also features profiles of the  women, highlighting the history behind each dish and revealing how  cooking factors into the lives of Asian American families.   --Asiasociety.org, September, 2009Hundreds of exotic ingredients star in the 130-plus recipes in Patricia  Tanumihardja's The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook: Home Cooking from Asian  Kitchens  released Oct. 1. Tanumihardja gathered the food formulas from  mothers, aunts, sisters, and grandmothers for the dishes that hail from  Japan to India. Through a little investigative work and careful testing,  Tanumihardja keeps the instruction simple. The result: a litany of  innovative family meals and pieces of history that would make grandma,  whatever her ethnic background, proud.   --Monterey County Weekly, October 1, 2009