This month, Newbery and Caldecott Honoree Grace Lin set out on an East Coast tour to celebrate her new book, Chinese Menu (Little, Brown), which explores the origins of the most familiar dishes in American Chinese restaurants. Lin was joined by her friend and fellow author Debbi Michiko Florence, creator of the Jasmine Toguchi series, for a number of bookstore visits and signings—with plenty of stops for tasty treats along the way. We’ve rounded up highlights from their travels, which they dubbed the “Very Asian Book Trip.”
Grace Lin (l.) and Debbi Michiko Florence wish for a successful trip on a daruma doll—a Japanese wishing doll—before they hit the road.
The author duo finally meets the group of patient readers who waited for them while they drove through the rain to Possible Futures, a community book space in New Haven, Conn.
Signing books at River Bend Bookshop in Glastonbury, Conn.
No “Very Asian Book Trip” would be complete without a stash of Very Asian Car Snacks!
Lin signs her books at the Toadstool Bookshop in Keene, N.H., with a Chinese name chop.
A sumptuous feast of noodles, soup, and scallion pancakes at Taiwanese restaurant T. Roots in Northampton, Mass.
The friends agree that bubble tea = a happy me in Northampton, Mass.
Grace Lin dining at Ms. Lin Chinese Cuisine in Millburn, N.J. You might say the menu had her name on it. All the dishes from the meal are featured in Chinese Menu: chow mein, General Tso’s chicken, and moo shu pork. In a recent interview with PW, Lin called moo shu her favorite American Chinese dish. “It wasn’t in my mom’s repertoire, and we never had it at home. I’d come home from college and we’d go to the one Chinese restaurant in our town in Upstate New York, and I’d always order the moo shu pork. I still do. There’s something about wrapping it up and that warm feeling I get.” It’s very fitting that Lin’s 12-stop tour wrapped up with something delicious.
