The Last Chinese Chef
From the publisher: "This alluring novel of friendship, love, and cuisine... When Maggie McElroy, a widowed American food writer, learns of a Chinese paternity claim against her late husband’s estate, she has to go immediately to Beijing. She asks her magazine for time off, but her editor counters with an assignment: to profile the rising culinary star Sam Liang. In China, Maggie unties the knots of her husband’s past, finding out more than she expected about him and about herself. With Sam as her guide, she is also drawn deep into a world of food rooted in centuries of history and philosophy. To her surprise she begins to be transformed by the cuisine, by Sam’s family—a querulous but loving pack of cooks and diners—and most of all by Sam himself."
More info →Best Contemporary Women’s Fiction: Six Novels
Six novels in one volume—including Ann Patchett (The Magician's Assistant), Elizabeth Benedict, Jenna Blum, Molly Gloss, Nicole Mones, and Maggie O'Farrell (The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox)—a deal.
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