Shortly after the 2008 market crash, our consulting business went down by 90% overnight. In my panic, I started to search the job boards, beefing up the marketing of our services to try and generate income. Thanks to my husband and business partner, he had built up a rainy day fund but little did we expect the tsunami that hit us that year! Instead of panicking, he suggested that I take a break from our consulting business, see it as a gift of time and seize this opportunity to finish my cookbook that I had been working on for years and never quite got to the finish line.
Well, I did just that. I hired a cookbook designer/project manager and set up a proper plan with deliverables and associated timelines and got to work. The result was "Shanghai Dragon's Journey West, An Exploration of Chinese Cuisine Across Three Generations". I hit every major and minor book publishers and got many rejection letters. One local publisher was kind enough to call me to explain that they publish ~10-15 cookbooks a year and they can only take on 1 Asian cookbook per year. Given those odds and being an unknown author, I took the path of self publishing on Blurb and successfully published my 1st cookbook in 2009.
There were many unexpected opportunities that came with marketing this cookbook, including several local TV appearances and guest chef/cooking instructor at Cavallo Point Lodge and Kitchen on Fire cooking schools. I'm happy to say that the recipes have stood the test of time and the stories are more meaningful to me today.
A little bit about the book. The book title is named for my father, who is from Shanghai and was born in the year of the dragon. The stories and recipes trace our family's journey from China to Taiwan to the US and how the dishes evolved. There are "flashbacks" and "flashforwards" where I share how a dish is prepared in one generation and how it evolves with another.
With the relaunch of Lulu's Kitchen website, I'm happy to share with you the digital version of this cookbook that I dedicate to my parents. You can download it from here.
I hope you will enjoy it!
