RIP Eileen Yin-Fei Lo

[weinoo]

AT 85. RIP.

 

Long ago and living in California, I was teaching myself to cook; starting with Chinese food.  This was mid-70s (yeah, I'm old). I took lessons, bought cookbooks, my first wok and Chinese cleaver, etc.

 

Lo's books were always a great resource, and as I started to explore more regional styles, this one (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) was especially useful...

 

 

Published 1988.

 

From the NY Times:

 

Quote

 

Writing in The Times in 1989, Florence Fabricant praised “New Cantonese Cooking” for its departure from the Chinese food that many Americans knew. “The book is timely in view of the growing interest in true Cantonese cooking, as opposed to the westernized chop suey cuisine familiar to many Americans,” she wrote. “The fresh, delicate but richly seasoned cooking of Canton is explained with considerable insight.”

 

Sydny Miner, who edited Ms. Lo’s 2003 book, “The Chinese Chicken Cookbook,” said in an interview that her recipes deftly walked the line between accessibility and authenticity.

But Ms. Lo’s desire to educate people went beyond cookbooks.

She would frequently take friends and colleagues to Chinatown in Lower Manhattan, where she taught them how to navigate the shops and restaurants and showed them her favorite places to get ginger, sausage or dim sum.

“Everybody loved her,” said Justin Schwartz, who edited a few of Ms. Lo’s cookbooks in the 1990s. “She would get private side rooms you didn’t even know existed on upper floors of restaurants in Chinatown.”