Continuing that book and food theme...

I finished The Zookeeper's Wife just in time for Chinese New Year and another book-food combo.
My book group decided that the next book we'd tackle is the Ann Arbor/Ypsi Community Read: William Poy Lee's The Eighth Promise: An American Son's Tribute to His Toisanese Mother. Reading two non-fiction books in a row is pretty atypical for me, though the food link definitely helps keep me engaged.

I think this memoir will be fast and interesting, but again, I think I'm going to find the writer's style a bit annoying. I don't think it'll bug me in the same way as Ackerman's digressions and flowery language, but Lee's prose seems a little awkward and conversational at times. When a pretty down to earth book suddenly starts a paragraph with "Oh..." I get the feeling that he couldn't think of another way to express his (genuine) emotions but by lapsing into conversational writing. If the whole book was told this way, that would be one thing. But I find it a little jarring to hop back and forth.

Anyway, on Thursday the kids wore the padded satin outfits Brian brought them back from Shanghai last year (quite perfect for our current cold weather) and I made some Chinese-ish food for dinner: fried tofu with boc choy and shitake mushrooms in an orange/ginger/garlic sauce, fried rice, and dumplings from the freezer chest at the Asian grocery store.
It was pretty decent for homemade Chinese food, but the amazing thing was that Ian ate it; except for the boc choy and mushrooms, he had a decent sized portion of tofu, fried rice with peas and scallions and dumplings that were pork but had a lot of green stuff in there too. I was flabbergasted--this kid usually has me jumping through hoops and dreading how he'll express himself when he sees what is on his plate. If the pickiest eater in the house starts off the Year of the Rat this way, maybe it'll be a good food year for us all.