The Last Chinese Chef

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book would never have come to fruition without my exceptional editor, Jane Rosenman. Her patience, knowledge, and good nature were topped only by her unerring, almost uncanny ability to see the book’s strengths and help me maximize them. My agent, Bonnie Nadell, saw the potential in this book from my very first enunciation of its concept and supported it all the way, from the first stages of research to the last page. Katya Rice’s thoughtful manuscript editing improved the book greatly. The Houghton Mifflin team is the stuff authors’ dreams are made of, especially Taryn Roeder and Sanj Kharbanda.

I will always be indebted to Ruth Reichl for encouraging me to write about Chinese cuisine for Gourmet and for her willingness to publish articles that place Chinese cuisine in the wider context of culture, history, mindset, and patterns of emigration. My editors at the magazine, Jocelyn Zuckerman and Amanda Agee, helped me learn to do better work. In large part it was through the research and writing I undertook for them that I gained the knowledge and confidence to write this novel.

Many friends have been supportive, but Barbara Peters of the Poisoned Pen in Phoenix, Arizona, deserves a special thanks. She has always encouraged me, even writing to me between books to urge me to keep going. Every writer knows the moments of selfdoubt. She helped me move past those, and I often found myself writing with her in mind.

My great friend Evelyn Madsen accompanied me on a research trip to Shaoxing and Hangzhou, bringing her good humor and excellent palate to a whirlwind schedule of restaurant visits, chef interviews, and scouting jaunts for scenes. It is my policy to go everywhere my characters go, and she made it more fun.

I’m grateful to my friends Tom Saunders and Nancy Beers, each of whom gave me a private place to work when I needed to block out this world in order to conjure up another one. Thanks too to my foodie friends Anne Sprecher, Linda Burum, John Wong, and Ruth Parvin, for sharing tips and rumors on good restaurants and for our fun and informative outings.

My terrific husband, Paul Mones, has gone far beyond supporting my writing to being an invaluable resource on Chinese cuisine. A talented fusion cook who as a teenager washed dishes in a Chinese restaurant to learn technique and went on to win the North Carolina state pork championship, he chose a Chinese restaurant for our first date, where it was instantly apparent that we were well matched. In my thirty years of travel to China, he is the only person I have ever seen climb up on restaurant chairs to photograph everything that comes to the table.

My last and deepest thanks are for my wonderful sons, Ben and Luke. Not only do they appreciate Chinese food, they have always offered love, support, and a generous understanding of all it takes to write a book. I’m not sure that without them I could ever have produced this one.