Ken Hom

I love, love, love this cookbook! The detailed explanations with photos to illustrate are helpful and inspiring. This is one I will be using a lot.

A very readable cookbook -- in fact I find it more interesting to read than to use as a cookbook, though this is partly because it's not at all vegetarian :-)

It starts with a long introduction about ingredients, and it goes on as a journey through China (which Hom really did, and provides the framework for the recipes).

The text is interesting and has a lot about Chinese food and culture, and how they intersect. I could do without the emigré nostalgia for a past which, whatever you think show more about the present, was feudal and unpleasant: but I can put up with it given how interesting the book as a whole is.

The recipes themselves are not illustrated, but there are some very good photos in the book. show less

A little dated, but still usua in its discussion of contemporary Chinese cooking. Contrasts with the majority of books in English which tend to deal with either a) traditional Chinese or b) modern Chinese in the context of cheffy fusion with French method.

This is another favorite that shows how simple and easy Chinese cooking can be. Ken Hom gives some of the recipes that his working mother used to put together 4-course meals in an hour, night after night when he was growing up in Chicago's Chinatown. He worked in his uncle's restaurant and also gives us a lot of recipes for those long-time American favorites ... both the restaurant menu version (for Americans) and the "secret menu" version (for Chinese patrons). Hom has been teaching cooking show more for a long time and it shows. These are very accessible and will please everyone in your family. Believe me, if Hannah likes these meals, then anyone will! show less