In every mouthful of food lie hints of history—personal and global. This book is a collection of those stories and recipes. It provides a window onto world cuisine from a contemporary American perspective; it’s also a portrait of my life as a working chef. I have always been and remain a chef who cooks. Most nights of the week I can still be found behind the line at annisa, expediting, cooking, and plating: It is where I am most at home.
I was brought up in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan, with parents who had both emigrated from Asia. My father was from Shanghai and walked out of China at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. My mother was from Malaysia; her family was part of a large population of people from the Fujian province who had immigrated to Kuala Lumpur and who, both linguistically and nationally, continue to define themselves as Chinese. When she arrived in the United States, her first stop was Tennessee, where she received her premed degree. My parents met in San Francisco—she was interning at the same hospital where my father was a doctor. They both worked long hours as practicing physicians.
