Product Description

In her satisfying, sensual third novel, Nicole Mones takes readers inside the hidden world of elite cuisine in modern China through the story of an American food writer in Beijing. When recently widowed Maggie McElroy is called to China to settle a claim against her late husband's estate, she is blindsided by the discovery that he may have led a double life. Since work is all that will keep her sane, her magazine editor assigns her to profile Sam, a half-Chinese American who is the last in a line of gifted chefs tracing back to the imperial palace. As she watches Sam gear up for China's Olympic culinary competition by planning the banquet of a lifetime, she begins to see past the cuisine's artistry to glimpse its coherent expression of Chinese civilization. It is here, amid lessons of tradition, obligation, and human connection that she finds the secret ingredient that may yet heal her heart.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3228 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-06
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Amazon.com
Nicole Mones has mined the endless riches of China once again in The Last Chinese Chef. This time she hits the trifecta: the personal stories of Sam and Maggie, the history and lore of Chinese cuisine, and an inside look at cultural dislocation. Maggie McElroy is a widowed American food writer who is suddenly confronted with a paternity claim against her late husband's estate--by a Chinese family. Her editor offers her another reason to go to Beijing: write an article about a rising young Chinese-American-Jewish chef, Sam Liang. Having sold the home she had with her late husband Matt and reduced her possessions to only the barest necessities, with her life feeling as though it is contracting around her, Maggie embraces the oppportunity to sort out her feelings about Matt's supposed infidelity and do some work at the same time.

She and Sam hit it off right away, even though he is involved in a very important competition for a place on the Chinese national cooking team for the 2008 Olympics. They travel together to the south of China where she meets her husband's possible daughter--with Sam standing by to act as translator--and where Maggie meets much of Sam's family. He has been welcomed back with open arms, even though he occasionally feels that he has one foot in China and one in Ohio. The Beijing uncles and the Hangzhou uncle are a raucous, loving, argumentative bunch of foodies who advise Sam about menus, encourage a romance with Maggie, make him start over again when the dish isn't perfect, and alternately praise and criticize his cooking.

Maggie loves being in the middle of it all and finds herself more and more drawn to Sam. She begins, with Sam's help, to see food as "healing" and understands the guanxi or "connectedness" that takes place around food. At the beginning of each chapter is a paragraph taken from a book entitled The Last Chinese Chef, written by Sam's grandfather and translated by Sam and his father. Mones has written that book, too, which is an explanation of the place of food in Chinese history and family life. The novel is rich with meaning and lore and an examination of loving relationships. Don't even touch this book when you're hungry. The descriptions make the aromas and textures float right off the page. --Valerie Ryan

From Publishers Weekly
A recently widowed American food writer finds solace and love—and the most inspiring food she's ever encountered—during a visit to China in Mones's sumptuous latest. Still reeling from husband Matt's accidental death a year ago, food writer Maggie McElroy is flummoxed when a paternity claim is filed against Matt's estate from Beijing, where he sometimes traveled for business. Before Maggie embarks on the obligatory trip to investigate, her editor assigns her a profile on Sam Liang, a half-Chinese American chef living in Beijing who is about to enter a prestigious cooking competition. Sam's old-school recipes and history lessons of high Chinese cuisine kick-start Maggie's dulled passion for food and help her let go of her grief, even as she learns of Matt's Beijing bed hopping. Though the narrative can get bogged down in the minutiae of Chinese culinary history (filtered through the experiences of Sam's family), Mones's descriptions of fine cuisine are tantalizing, and her protagonist's quest is bracing and unburdened by melodrama. Early in her visit, Maggie scoffs at the idea that "food can heal the human heart." Mones smartly proves her wrong. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Food writer Maggie McElroy fights a losing struggle with grief following her attorney husband's death. When a woman in China files a paternity claim against the estate, Maggie pulls herself together and rushes to Beijing to find the mother and determine her charge's validity. Maggie's editor suggests that as long as Maggie must travel to China anyway, she should research an article about a young American-born Jewish Chinese chef. Determined to open a restaurant dedicated to the most ancient examples and purest principles of Chinese cuisine, this young chef has begun a translation of his grandfather's celebrated book about cooking in the imperial court. Under the guidance of his kitchen-savvy uncles, he must also prepare to compete in a nationwide culinary competition. In Mones' skilled hands, the grandfather's memoir becomes a book within the novel. Mones' achievement appeals not just to devotees of fiction but equally to anyone interested in Chinese cooking. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Alluring if not perfect
The story line seemed somewhat fresh to me and the book was my best friend for the few days it took to read it. No fewer than ten times, however, I'd feel an ominous uneasiness, a "don't go there again...don't oversimplify American & western ideals, personalities, culture, food..", but it would. Example, the scenario in which a Chinese would take precious time off of prep time for a competition to visit an ailing uncle and that's the Chinese way, but by blatant implication not the western way, is not just condescending, it's incorrect. New Yorkers inconveniencing people and expecting the inconvenienced to stop them? Wow, I'm from the 2nd city and myself enjoy lambasting the Big Kahuna, but that's not at all the general attitude I encounter during my regular NYC visits.
It's a common problem in a lot of the new "globalized" fiction, an "exotic" society being so much more connected and deep and philosophical. It's not as insulting as it is embarrasing for the authors who obviously aren't emmeshed in "western" society to understand its codes of ethics, mores and its own formal societal rules, all resulting from complex codes and histories of our own.

The Last Chinese Chef
I was somewhat disappointed in the book. I was expecting to learn more about Chinese cooking and the Chinese culture. It was a nice, simple story. A very easy read.

The Last Chinese Chef
I loved this book. It was very different. So much personal turmoil with a backdrop of Chinese Culture. Everyone around me was getting hungry. I would love to read some more books by the same author