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The Last Chinese Chefby: Nicole Mones
Boston MA:
A Mariner Book, Houghton Mifflin Company 2007, $13.95, Hardbound
ISBN: 978-0-547-0537308
Reviewed by: Jacqueline M. Newman
Summer Volume: 2019 Issue: 26(2) page(s): 26
This engrossing
book is hard to
put down even
for a bathroom
break. It is about
man’s Chinese
feast, is a perfect
and exciting
read, a wise and
a romantic plot
about Chinese food culture by an American food writer
who did live in Beijing.
It begins with a lady going to China to settle a claim about
her late husband. She learns he may have lived a double
life. Her editor assigns her to profile Sam, a 45 half-
Chinese American chef with a history going back to the
Imperial Palace, and with his lifetime of food glimpsing
through every Chinese civilization. There are lessons of
Chinese tradition, obligation, and human connections to
heal her heart, and it can do likewise for yours as you
delve into all lives. This romantic plot and page-turner, is exciting, and a
wise feast for the heart. The Wall Street Journal calls
it “delicious,” the Seattle Times “engrossing” and this
magazine says “do not miss a single page about the
Chinaphiles who began working there in 1977”. Mones wrote two very successful novels before this one,
both about China. She lived there while so doing, and
was a frequent contributor to Gourmet magazine and
other non-literary venues. This, her not-to-be-missed
novel, clips and rips one’s heart as it makes you read
faster than you might like yet wanting to stay with her
forever. A solution, read it twice; we did! |
