Food For Thought

by Jacqueline M. Newman

Dear Reader

Spring Volume: 2017 Issue: 24(1) page(s): 4

Dear Reader:

Welcome to this first issue written at our new address as noted in the column to the left. Our new e-mail address is there, too.

This first issue of our24th year writing and editing Flavor and Fortune, the only English-language Chinese food magazine, offers twenty years of articles free to all on our website. We truly believe and want to share knowledge about this fabulous cuisine, and are amazed at the number of articles published. We never dreamed that we would still be at it ten years ago, and continue to get more queries than we ever thought possible. It has hardly slowed down even with these addresses changes. Queries keep us busy about things we know not enough about; and writing about them keep us even busier.

We have written hundreds of articles, printed, and tested some two thousand recipes put into print by us and others, included more book and restaurant reviews, and written a generous bunch of short items responding to queries, some in the Letters to the Editor column. Anyone out there want to tally them all as we do not have the time to do so as we are still unpacking? We do enjoy responding to them and all your e-mails. They keep us hopping with our favorite topic, Chinese food. Do keep them coming! We thank everyone who has an interest in our favorite topic. We and our staff, all working pro bono, make responding to them a pleasure.

In this issue, we write about Islamic food and folk, Middle Eastern tastes in China, more about fruits, the third and longest article so far in this series, soups sweet and savory, a menu from an eatery in Flushing, four book reviews, shark’s fins, bamboo shoots, and more. Several have written asking us to write about unusual fruits, and after the next article about nuts and berries, we will address some of them. We plan to include information about cashew and carambola fruits; they are leading on that list. In the meantime, read about the many fruits discussed in this issue and other topics, and learn that one fruit, the tomato, is hardly recognized as a fruit.

Check into the many topics discussed in the past, twenty years of them, free to all. We did investigate most of them thanks to reader requests, so advise about others you may have questions about. Read a bit about those in this issue and in earlier ones on our website. We thank those who ask many questions, contribute to our efforts; and the many who give gifts large and small; all are appreciated.

Your editor has made sixteen trips to China, and will go again to the next food conference in Beijing next year. It is a wonderful city and she looks forward to doing so. By the way, she still looks forward to someone to replace her. At age eighty-four, that need will become a reality. Anyone who wants to write or edit about this longest continuous food culture, step right up! Learn on the job and learn helping this lady; experience is not necessary.

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