Arts & Culture
Mary McCarthy’s “The Group”: Three Queer Readings
“I think of McCarthy and ‘The Group,’ giving me language to understand myself before I even knew that’s what I needed.”
-150x150.jpeg)
Great Book Finds, and One That Got Away
“There is a saying in book collecting: You only regret the books you don’t buy.”
-150x150.jpg)
How She Did It: On Penelope Fitzgerald, Writing, and Women at Work
Fitzgerald was ground down, I imagine, consumed by how to take care of her family. This didn’t make her any less the thinker, writer, reader, that she was.
What “American Night” Meant to My Chinese American Family
Holding on to our cultural foods and customs was a labor of love, but labor nevertheless. American Night provided a little respite.
When the Food You Rejected as a Kid Becomes Trendy
“FOE!” he had yelled, when really, phở is more graceful than that.
-150x150.jpg)
What I Learned from Maxine Hong Kingston
I told Kingston how much her book meant to me as a half-Chinese woman, as a writer. It showed me my own life was worthy of examination, even exaltation.
The Strangeness of Eating Fish
Herring in Ukraine to fried whiting on my street. Melville to Jewish legend. How easily we eat fish caught from depths we don’t understand.
The Struggle of “Eating Well” When You’re Poor
“Finding joy in food that comes from a bag or a box feels like a sin in a society that demonizes it.”
The Threat Within: Harry Potter and the Cultural Baggage of Orphan Stories
“Unlike most popular orphan characters, I wasn’t too young to remember my parents.”
-144x150.jpg)
Making Menudo with My Abuela
“If food is like a language, then menudo is its own dialect in my family.”
-150x150.jpg)