What will Kentucky Book Festival visitors find on your table?
Visitors will find the cookbook The Simple Art of Rice, which I co-created with New York City Chef JJ Johnson. It is a book full of delicious rice recipes from around the world (including some of my favorites like Kimchi fried rice and mango sticky rice), as well as interviews with fascinating rice experts and essays about the history of rice, a global staple.
Whom do you invite to stop by? Who will benefit from reading your book?
Anyone who likes to cook or eat rice should stop by! This book also makes an excellent gift.
Could you please tell us something curious about you and/or your book?
My dad is half Chinese, so my family’s staple rice dish growing up was vegetable stir fried rice. While making this book, I learned that two different species of rice were domesticated independently in Asia 8000-10,000 years ago, and in Africa about 3500 years ago.
Is this your first time participating in Kentucky Book Festival? If yes – what are you looking forward to the most? If you’ve participated before – what was your favorite experience at the Festival?
I participated in 2022, and I loved reading my picture book Alexander Von Humboldt: Explorer, Naturalist & Environmental Pioneer to an audience of kids.
