Ever wonder how General Tso’s chicken got its name — or who General Tso was? In her gorgeous new book, Chinese Menu, Grace Lin tells the stories behind some of the most popular Chinese menu items. She shares these stories with us, why she wanted to tell them, and along the way, gives us a deeper understanding of resilience and triumph behind these foods, and what makes them undeniably American.  

Links From This Episode

• Chinese Menu by Grace Lin
• Grace Lin’s other books
• More about Grace Lin
• Grace’s podcasts, Kids Ask Authors and Book Friends Forever Podcast
• Our episode, Wok Cooking With J. Kenji Lopez-Alt
• J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s Fried Rice recipe

About Our Guest: Grace Lin

Grace Lin is a New York Times bestselling author and illustrator. You might know her work from some of our favorite children’s titles including Dim Sum for Everyone and A Big Mooncake for Little Star. She’s won numerous awards and honors for her work; her novel When the Sea Turned to Silver was a National Book Award Finalist and her picture book A Big Mooncake for Little Star was awarded the Caldecott Honor. In 2022, Grace was awarded the Children’s Literature Legacy Award from the American Library Association. Grace currently hosts two podcasts: Book Friends Forever and Kids Ask Authors. Grace lives in Northampton, Massachusetts with her husband, daughter and five chickens

Keep the Conversation Going

Wondering what the deal is with our community? Let us break it down so that you can join us where we can help you best!

Our FREE community membership is always available, and all you need to do is sign up with your email (which we never share with anyone!). Community Members get access to our message boards, where they can ask questions, trade tips, and commiserate with with thousands of other busy home cooks. They also get access to our recipe archive.

Our SUPER FAN membership comes with the community boards and recipe access, too, along with a whole host of other fantastic goodies including:

• And ad-free stream of all DIJFY episodes (!!!!!)
• Two full-length bonus episodes every month
• Behind-the-scenes audio cuts that include outtakes, bloopers, and extended conversations
• Bi-monthly Office Hours where we address YOUR questions and troubleshoot YOUR kitchen, cooking or feeding challenges live and in real-time

You can sign up for a Super Fan membership monthly or annually, which saves you 25%!

If you really want customized, hands-on help from us, we also offer a BFF (best fan forever) membership option which WE LOVE because it allows us to work with you directly, one-on-one (you know, if you consider us one unit!).

Check out all of our community options on the Community page of our site, and join us TODAY! We can’t wait to hang out and treat you to all the extra goodies we’ve made just for you!