UPCOMING EVENTS 2025
Jan 29, Grace A. Dow Memorial Library, Midland, MI
Jan 30, Ann Arbor District Library, Ann Arbor, MI
Feb 13, JF Books (Jifeng Bookstore), Washington, DC
PAST EVENTS 2024
May 6, 6pm, Archestratus Books + Foods, Brooklyn, NY
May 7, 7pm, Bold Fork Books, Washington, DC
May 9, 3:25pm, Library Journal Day of Dialog (recording)
May 9, 6pm, Flyleaf Bookstore, Chapel Hill, NC (recording)
May 30, 11am, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
June 12, 6:30pm, Museum of Chinese in America, NYC (recording)
June 25, 6:30pm, Omnivore Books, San Francisco, CA
Aug 2, 12-1pm, Book Larder, Seattle, WA (book signing)
Sept 27-29, History Book Festival, Lewes, DE
Oct 18, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
NEWS
“20 Best Narrative Food Books of 2024," Saveur
“100 Notable Books of 2024,” New York Times
“Books We Love 2024,” Shannon Rhoades, NPR
“Tastes Like Home,” Yangyang Cheng, Los Angeles Review of Books
“Chop Fry Watch Learn: Cooking with Fu Pei-mei,” Anne Mendelson, Wall Street Journal
“She Taught Generations How to Wield a Wok and a Cleaver,” Thessaly La Force, New York Times Book Review
“Remembering Fu Pei-mei, who taught a generation to cook Chinese food,” Jess Eng, Washington Post
“A new book traces the life of Fu Pei-mei, who brought Chinese food to the world,” Scott Simon interview, NPR Weekend Edition
Best Books to Read in May 2024, People Magazine
Best Book of the Month, Amazon
Editor’s Choice, New York Times
17 New Books Coming in May, New York Times
“Two books trace the social and historical impacts of food,” NPR’s Book of the Day
“Michelle T. King’s ‘Chop Fry Watch Learn’ remembers Fu Pei-mei, the woman who brought Chinese food to TV—and the world,” Sheryl Julian, Boston Globe
“Meet Fu Pei-mei, Taiwan’s first TV cooking star,” KCRW’s Good Food podcast
“Before Julia Child, There Was Fu Pei-mei,” National Endowment for the Humanities Magazine (excerpt)
“Chop Fry Watch Learn: Fu Pei-mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food,” TaiwaneseAmerican.org (excerpt)
PRAISE FOR Chop Fry Watch Learn
"In this ode, Michelle T. King weaves stories of how Fu Pei-mei’s cooking helped nourish a generation of immigrants to the U.S. in a way that “fed” us all.”
― NPR
"In Chop Fry Watch Learn, King deftly weaves discussions of feminism, nationalism, and geopolitics into a lively account of one woman’s remarkable life…As King reminds us, what we put on the table is never made from scratch. We are always channeling culinary knowledge accumulated during our journeys and across generations.”
― Los Angeles Review of Books
"King is acute and sensitive in presenting the paradoxes of Fu’s identity…[She] explores these and other provocative trains of thoughts with grace and clarity. She has produced that rare biography in which a protagonist comes to complex, contradiction-ridden life with no sacrifice of painstaking factual accuracy."
― Wall street journal
"Fascinating...As Michelle T. King demonstrates in this moving and ambitious biography, Fu Pei-mei was far more than the ‘Julia Child of Chinese cooking.’"
― New York Times Book Review
"Exploring the author’s love of Chinese cuisine and the story of Fu Pei-mei…this delicious book is a must-read for cooks and food-lovers."
― People Magazine
"King presents not just a biography of an indomitable woman, but a portrait of how cultures eat."
― New York Times
"King interweaves biography, memoir, and culinary history in her delicious debut…This tasty ode to an undersung chef satisfies."
― publishers weekly
"King adeptly tracks Fu’s career as a cooking pioneer as well as de facto ambassador for Taiwan…An appealing story of a determined home cook who taught generations how to prepare authentic Chinese food."
― Kirkus Reviews
"A large portion of the American populace still confuses Chinese American food with Chinese food. What a delight, then, to discover this culinary history of the worldwide dissemination of that great cuisine—which moonlights as a biography of Chinese cookbook and TV cooking program pioneer Fu Pei-mei."
― The Millions
"King does a remarkably thorough job of documenting Fu’s life…an appealing biography for gastronomes and students of feminist history alike."
― booklist
"King weaves history lessons, personal anecdotes and firsthand interviews into the thoroughly researched Chop Fry Watch Learn to paint the extent of Fu’s legacy…Readers are sure to find her diligent biography compelling."
― Bookpage
"A fascinating, in-depth look at the history and impact of the woman who taught countless mothers and grandmothers how to master Chinese home cooking."
― Kaitlin, Sarah, Bill, and Judy Leung, New York Times best-selling authors of The Woks of Life
"This is an eye-opening biography that’s well researched from a great storyteller."
― Grace Young, author of Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge
"An excellent and long overdue celebration of Fu’s long-lasting influence in kitchens around the world."
― Clarissa Wei, author of Made in Taiwan
"Michelle Tien King fuses the story of a fascinating modern culinary leader―a champion of Chinese mothers and wives―with the history of postwar Taiwan. It made me hungry for more Fu Pei-mei―and for dumplings."
― Danielle Dreilinger, author of The Secret History of Home Economics
"beautifully written and meticulously researched…Michelle T. King tackles complex social and political themes within this history, making it an engaging and important work for any reader, whether they grew up with Pei-mei in their kitchen or not."
― Cathy Erway, author of The Food of Taiwan
"Chop Fry Watch Learn stands as evidence that cooking transcends sustenance when propelled by visionaries like Fu."
― Lucas Sin, chef
"Michelle King makes culinary icon Fu Pei-mei come alive in this long overdue biography."
― Carolyn Phillips, author of At the Chinese Table and All Under Heaven
"spectacularly good…Michelle T. King shows us how learning to cook from the media and from street vendors―not from mothers―is at least a hundred years old."
― Krishnendu Ray, professor of food studies at NYU and author of The Ethnic Restaurateur
