My China

Another book signing! This afternoon Ingrid and I joined local food enthusiasts at the cookbook signing by Kylie Kwong, an Australian born chef of Chinese descent who has become a local celeb thru her books and television travel cooking gigs. She gave a brief but interesting presentation where she spoke of the Kwong family tree -- it being the largest Chinese immigrant family in Australia and herself being the second daughter, of the fourth son, of the fifth child, of the fourth wife of Kwong Sue Duk (her Great Grandfather) or something like that. I was trying to keep the genealogy straight but Ingrid was practicing her vocals so I had to keep the Ing quiet.

We purchased her most recent cookbook, My China, which is a collection of recipes, photos and stories about a trip she recently took to track down the ancestral Kwong village in Guangdong Province. It is a great book and inspires me to cook, and as I leaf thru it it's clear that I am becoming more accustomed to my surrounding hemisphere. The photos of jam-packed, open-air wet markets don't turn me off, I instead find them strangely charming. Charming in a 'I can't believe they are eating that' kind of way.