Feasts of Good Fortune

75 recipes for a full year of celebrations with family and friends the Chinese American way in this deeply personal intergenerational cookbook, cowritten by mother and daughter. Covering everything from traditional Lunar New Year menus with recipes passed down generations to Thanksgiving get-togethers celebrated with tantalizing side dishes, Author and former James Beard Foundation cookbook committee chair Hsiao-Ching Chou ( Cowritten with Hsiao-Ching’s 17-year-old daughter, Meilee, on reconnecting with her Chinese American heritage as a young adult, this deeply meaningful cookbook is an exploration of what it means to grow up in a “forever hyphenated culture” and celebrates the joy of the mother-daughter bond in cooking together. Organized chronologically with menus that''ll take out the guesswork, including: Lunar New Year (Sticky Rice with Chicken and Chinese Sausage) Lantern Festival (Glutinous Rice Balls with Black Sesame Paste) Honoring the Dead/Qing Ming (Steamed Spinach Dumplings) Dragon Boat Festival (Zong Zi); Mid-Autumn Festival (Mooncakes) Birthdays & Party Bites (Stir-Fried Long-Life Noodles) Side Dishes for East-meets-West Menus (Braised Kale with Dried Cranberries) Hot Pot Parties

Auteur
Hsiao-Ching Chou is an award-winning food journalist and author of three cookbooks on Chinese home cooking. Known for her potsticker classes, she has taught hundreds of students over the years. She is the past chair of the James Beard Foundation’s Book Awards Committee and serves on the board of directors for the Ballard Food Bank. When she’s not wearing her culinary hat, she makes a living as an editorial director in the tech industry. Chou lives with her family in Seattle.

Meilee Chou Riddle is a student of filmmaking, writing, and music. She comes from a family of storytellers, including her TV producer dad, Eric Riddle; cookbook author mom, Hsiao-Ching Chou; and lifestyle blogger grandma, Ellen Chou. Meilee is always looking for ways to express her creativity. Her award-winning films have been featured in regional and national film festivals. She lives in Seattle with her family.

Échantillon de lecture
WHY THIS BOOK
 
Mom Says: “When can we get together with the cousins again?” My daughter’s voice was filled with longing for a family dinner we wouldn’t be able to host for an unknowable period of time. Lunar New Year, birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, all the celebrations that mark the passing of the year suddenly changed shape when a virus shut down the world. What we valued about the togetherness of a shared meal sharpened when the ability to gather evaporated.
 
As a parent, I never know what practices and traditions stick with my two kids and their five cousins. Teenagers are especially inscrutable. So Meilee’s wish for dinner with our extended family broke my heart, because I didn’t know how long the pandemic would restrict our lives. And it also signaled that all the past dinners had imprinted their memories in her consciousness. In a painful moment, I found hope—and the seed for this book. I can share recipes and their stories through headnotes. But passing on traditions requires someone to receive them with intention. It’s also the responsibility of the bearer to invite the next generation into the narrative, to make space for the perspectives of those who will carry on our histories.
 
Conversations with Meilee taught me that she and her Asian peers constantly grapple with bias in subtle and blatant ways, struggle with their mixed-race identities, and are figuring out their social justice voices. In the midst of the fight, food is where they meet to find joy and deliciousness. Co-creating this book with Meilee means she can find herself in the story and explore future evolutions of herself without fear of losing her way. Meilee, her brother, Shen, and all of their cousins are mixed-race. The experiences of this generation of young people and how they bond through food are important to how we talk about celebrations.
 
The phrase in Mandarin 團圓, or “tuan yuan” (tuan = together and yuan = round or circle), signifies the act of coming together for a family meal, especially around the holidays. Feasts of Good Fortune is about tuan yuan meals and the roundness they bring to families and friends. I’ve featured Lunar New Year menus in both Chinese Soul Food and Vegetarian Chinese Soul Food but haven’t gone beyond that to share the symbolic foods and traditions of other holidays. If my first two books were “on-ramps” to everyday Chinese home cooking, this book on celebrations completes the story.
 
We also want to acknowledge that how we honor traditional holidays is very much influenced by where we live. I was born in Taipei, Taiwan, but I grew up in the United States in the Midwest, and I’ve now lived more than twenty years in Seattle, Washington. Meilee was born in Seattle and has grown up in this place known for wild salmon, Dungeness crab, and roadside blackberry brambles. She can dispatch a Dungeness crab with stunning swiftness! Our culture and family are forever hyphenated and so are many of the ingredients we use to make the foods we like.
 
The older I get, the farther away I feel from the place where I was born. That distance morphed my relationship to traditions my parents used to practice when my brothers and I were kids. I have to reach deep into my memory banks to connect with moments where we honored our ancestors or picked through our favorite mooncake flavors. Lunar New Year has always been the main holiday, filled with pomp. Without intention, holidays can become afterthoughts, and I don’t want that to be the case. So, here we are. I hope Feasts of Good Fortune is a reminder of the moments we have throughout the year to come together. And that it bridges the nostalgia with the futures that live in my kids and their peers.
 
—Hsiao-Ching Chou
 
Meilee’s Perspective: A Year in the Life of My Family
In our Chinese American family, every year holds countless celebrations big and small. These celebrations aren't just dates on a calendar; they're the moments that will stick with us forever. No matter the time of year, our home is filled with the flavors, sights, and sounds of both Chinese and American traditions. I’d like to tell you about a year in our house and just a few of our celebrations, from Lunar New Year's vibrant red lanterns to Thanksgiving's huge feast.
 
We begin every January ringing in the new year with our latest goals and resolutions, trying to start it off on the right track. My dad cleans up the house and makes sure we start things organized, while my brother and I grasp to our last few days off from school.
 
Lunar New Year typically falls between mid-January to mid-February. Lunar New Year is probably one of the biggest celebrations of the year. Preparation begins at least a week in advance. My mom begins planning a menu, making sure she hits everyone’s favorites. Then, she and my grandma head to the local Asian market. To paint a picture for those who are unfamiliar, imagine grocery stores around Thanksgiving or Christmas. It’s intense. Lots of the elderly Asian people are up bright and early to stock up on everything from meats to vegetables to red envelopes and decorations. Everyone is on their own mission to create a feast to make sure they start the new year off right. My mom has to start cooking a few days in advance to make sure everything can be done in time.
 
March and April mark the changing seasons. We celebrate the beauty of the Pacific Northwest as it transitions. I am very lucky to live in an area that is so surrounded by nature. I am able to loo…