Epicurious, Asia Society, and BlogTalkRadio

What a month this has been! New York has been blanketed by an insane heatwave, so I've been trying to keep cool by staying busy indoors in front of a fan and temperamental AC unit. And teaching cooking classes, which also happen to be indoors (fortunately!) I've also been prepping a few new recipes into publish as well, but in meantime I'm happy to share a few recent press mentions.

Stir-frying at Home - Epicurious recently published this great primer on stir-frying and featured Appetite for China and The Chinese Takeout Cookbook. Check it out to pick up some new tips and tricks!

Interview with Asia Society - If you've ever wondered how Puerto Rican cooking or French culinary training relates to Chinese food, read on!

BlogDiana KuanJuly 17, 2013Events, News Comments

Tangra Summer – An Indian-Chinese Seasonal Dinner

The idea for Tangra Summer came about a few months ago. My friend Chitra Agrawal, founder of The ABCD’s of Cooking and a cooking teacher who specializes in Indian food, had suggested we team up to create a pop-up dinner to celebrate local food in Brooklyn. A farm-to-table dinner with a twist. Instead of New American cooking, we could combine our respective backgrounds in Indian and Chinese cooking and create a cross-cultural vegetarian dinner highlighting seasonal food in Brooklyn.

It took me about half a second to say yes. And so Tangra was born.

Named after a Calcutta neighborhood home that was the birthplace of Indian-Chinese cuisine, Tangra will be held once a season to celebrate farm fresh produce. Our inaugural dinner, Tangra Summer 2013, will debut August 25th at the Wyckoff Farmhouse Museum, a Dutch farmhouse that dates back to 1652 and is New York’s oldest surviving structure. The dinner will take place inside the historic farmhouse, with dishes served family-style, featuring vegetables grown onsite from head Wyckoff gardener Jason Gaspar and beers from our sponsors Big Alice Brewing out of Long Island City. We’ll also have pre-dinner lawn games; in short, plenty of fun to cap off the summer!

BlogDiana KuanJuly 15, 2013Events, News, Supper Clubs Comment

Dumplings and Wontons Class, July 24th at West Elm Market

BlogDiana KuanJuly 8, 2013Events, News Comments

Reminder: Transfer your RSS feeds by July 1st!

BlogDiana KuanJune 23, 2013News Comments

Summer Cooking Classes in New York

BlogDiana KuanJune 16, 2013Classes, Events, News Comments

Cooking and Food Blogging on TV

BlogDiana KuanJune 12, 2013News Comments

The Chinese Takeout Cookbook Giveaway!

What a great 5 months it has been since the release of The Chinese Takeout Cookbook!

The last few months have been a whirlwind of interviews, classes and events, article-writing, and the like. Thank you for all the support. You've helped so much by buying the book, recommending it to your friends and family, participating in the Virtual Potluck back in February, and otherwise tweeting, Instagramming, and Facebooking about the book and its recipes.

Other than the potluck, I haven't had a chance to organize a cookbook giveaway on the blog yet. So today I'm offering up a giveaway for three signed copies of the cookbook! To enter to win one of the copies, just visit the Chinese Recipes archive and leave a comment below, telling me 1 or 2 of the recipes on the Chinese Recipes page that you're interested in trying out. (The recipes don't have to be in the cookbook.)

BlogDiana KuanMay 3, 2013Cookbook, Giveaways, News Comments

Chinese New Year Virtual Potluck + Winners!

Hello again! It took me a little longer than expected to put up this post, due to the influx of submissions at the eleventh hour, but here it is!

At the beginning of February, I organized a Chinese New Year Virtual Potluck as a fun way to both celebrate Chinese New Year and to get readers cooking from The Chinese Takeout Cookbook. Participants would receive a copy of the cookbook to keep or give away. In addition, they would be entered in a drawing for other great prizes, including a Le Creuset French oven, set of 6 Random House cookbooks, GrubKit recipe kits, and Edgeware graters.

The turnout was even better than expected: 41 of you wonderful bloggers cooked, photographed, and shared your thoughts on 7 dishes from The Chinese Takeout Cookbook for Chinese New Year. I loved reading all your posts on shopping for Chinese ingredients, introducing your family to new year foods and traditions, making ingredient substitutions to suit your lifestyle, and even getting a little creative in reinterpreting the original recipes.

BlogDiana KuanFebruary 27, 2013Events, News Comments

Chinese New Year Virtual Potluck; Grand Prizes from Le Creuset & Random House

Happy early Chinese New Year!

This year I'm unable to make it home to Boston, but I'm still planning on celebrating in two ways: 1) Gathering a big group of friends for dim sum here in New York, and 2) hosting a Chinese New Year Virtual Potluck here with the online food community.

I've never done a big event like this here on this blog, so it's very exciting to announce. My goal, in addition to celebrating the release of my first cookbook, is to get as many bloggers as possible to make Chinese dishes this month (even if it seems a little intimidating!) I hope to make this an event for sharing and learning from each other about how to adapt Chinese cooking to suit your own lifestyle.

I've also teamed up with wonderful sponsors including — Le Creuset, Random House, GrubKit, and Edgeware — to give something to everyone participating.

BlogDiana KuanFebruary 4, 2013Events, News Comments

Press for The Chinese Takeout Cookbook

RecipesDiana KuanJanuary 14, 2013Cookbook, News Comments

Cookbook Launch Party!

BlogDiana KuanNovember 30, 2012Events, News Comments

Cookies from Around the World Recipe Kit!

Remember my Japanese green tea cookie post from two weeks ago that I was working on as part of an upcoming cookie recipe kit? Well, I'm happy to report that after extensive recipe testing (and arduous amounts of taste testing!) my friends at GrubKit and I finally launched our Cookies from Around the World kit.

The kit features ingredients for baking cookies from four countries around the world:

Italian Cranberry and Pistachio Biscotti
Japanese Green Tea Shortbread Cookies
Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies
German Gingerbread Cookies (Lebkuchen)

The cookies in the kit are both from traditional recipes and with inventive modern takes. All the specialty dry ingredients are included in the box, so no need to run out and purchase big packs of ingredients like matcha powder, vanilla beans, and crystallized ginger just for one baking project. We designed the kit with the holidays in mind, as an ideal gift for novice bakers, but you can also invite friends and family over for a cookie baking party or bake them one recipe at at time at your leisure.