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Fresh off the boat : a memoir / Eddie Huang.

By: Material type: TextTextPublication details: New York : Spiegel & Grau, c2013.Edition: 1st edDescription: 276 p. ; 25 cmISBN:
  • 0679644881 (hbk. : acidfree paper)
  • 9780679644880 (hbk. : acid-free paper)
Subject(s): Summary: The author is the thirty-year-old proprietor of Baohaus, the hot East Village hangout where foodies, stoners, and students come to stuff their faces with delicious Taiwanese street food late into the night, and one of the food world's brightest and most controversial young stars. But before he created the perfect home for himself in a small patch of downtown New York, he wandered the American wilderness looking for a place to call his own. He grew up in theme-park America, on a could-be-anywhere cul-de-sac in suburban Orlando, Florida raised by a wild family of FOB ("fresh off the boat") hustlers and hysterics from Taiwan. While his father improbably launched a series of successful seafood and steak restaurants, the author burned his way through American culture, defying every "model minority" stereotype along the way. He obsessed over football, fought the all-American boys who called him a chink, partied like a gremlin, sold drugs with his crew, and idolized Tupac. His anchor through it all was food, from making Southern ribs with the Haitian cooks in his dad's restaurant to preparing traditional meals in his mother's kitchen to haunting the midnight markets of Taipei when he was shipped off to the homeland. After misadventures as an unlikely lawyer, street fashion renegade, and stand-up comic, he finally threw everything he loved, past and present, family and food, into his own restaurant, bringing together a legacy stretching back to China and the shards of global culture he had melded into his own identity. This book is the immigrant's story for the twenty-first century; a story of food, family, and the forging of a new notion of what it means to be an American.
List(s) this item appears in: Celebrity Written Books Fiction notes: Click to open in new window
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Dr. James Carlson Library Biography Huang, E. H874 Available 33111006931998
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library Biography Huang, E. H874 Available 33111007066034
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"Long before I met him, I was a fan of his writing, and his merciless wit. He's bigger than food."--Anthony Bourdain
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY "KIRKUS REVIEWS"
Eddie Huang is the thirty-year-old proprietor of Baohaus--the hot East Village hangout where foodies, stoners, and students come to stuff their faces with delicious Taiwanese street food late into the night--and one of the food world's brightest and most controversial young stars. But before he created the perfect home for himself in a small patch of downtown New York, Eddie wandered the American wilderness looking for a place to call his own.
Eddie grew up in theme-park America, on a could-be-anywhere cul-de-sac in suburban Orlando, raised by a wild family of FOB ("fresh off the boat") hustlers and hysterics from Taiwan. While his father improbably launched a series of successful seafood and steak restaurants, Eddie burned his way through American culture, defying every "model minority" stereotype along the way. He obsessed over football, fought the all-American boys who called him a chink, partied like a gremlin, sold drugs with his crew, and idolized Tupac. His anchor through it all was food--from making Southern ribs with the Haitian cooks in his dad's restaurant to preparing traditional meals in his mother's kitchen to haunting the midnight markets of Taipei when he was shipped off to the homeland. After misadventures as an unlikely lawyer, street fashion renegade, and stand-up comic, Eddie finally threw everything he loved--past and present, family and food--into his own restaurant, bringing together a legacy stretching back to China and the shards of global culture he'd melded into his own identity.
Funny, raw, and moving, and told in an irrepressibly alive and original voice, "Fresh Off the Boat "recasts the immigrant's story for the twenty-first century. It's a story of food, family, and the forging of a new notion of what it means to be American.
Praise for "Fresh Off the Boat"
"Brash and funny . . . outrageous, courageous, moving, ironic and true."--"New York Times Book Review"
"Bawdy and frequently hilarious . . . a surprisingly sophisticated memoir about race and assimilation in America . . . as much James Baldwin and Jay-Z as Amy Tan . . . rowdy and] vital . . . It's a book about fitting in by not fitting in at all."--Dwight Garner, "The""New York Times"
" "
"Uproariously funny . . . emotionally honest."--"Chicago Tribune"
"Huang is a fearless raconteur. His] writing is at once hilarious and provocative; his incisive wit pulls through like a perfect plate of dan dan noodles."--"Interview"
"Although writing a memoir is an audacious act for a thirty-year-old, it is not nearly as audacious as some of the things Huang did and survived even earlier. . . . Whatever he ends up doing, you can be sure it won't look or sound like anything that's come before. A single, kinetic passage from "Fresh Off the Boat" . . . is all you need to get that straight.""--Bookforum"

The author is the thirty-year-old proprietor of Baohaus, the hot East Village hangout where foodies, stoners, and students come to stuff their faces with delicious Taiwanese street food late into the night, and one of the food world's brightest and most controversial young stars. But before he created the perfect home for himself in a small patch of downtown New York, he wandered the American wilderness looking for a place to call his own. He grew up in theme-park America, on a could-be-anywhere cul-de-sac in suburban Orlando, Florida raised by a wild family of FOB ("fresh off the boat") hustlers and hysterics from Taiwan. While his father improbably launched a series of successful seafood and steak restaurants, the author burned his way through American culture, defying every "model minority" stereotype along the way. He obsessed over football, fought the all-American boys who called him a chink, partied like a gremlin, sold drugs with his crew, and idolized Tupac. His anchor through it all was food, from making Southern ribs with the Haitian cooks in his dad's restaurant to preparing traditional meals in his mother's kitchen to haunting the midnight markets of Taipei when he was shipped off to the homeland. After misadventures as an unlikely lawyer, street fashion renegade, and stand-up comic, he finally threw everything he loved, past and present, family and food, into his own restaurant, bringing together a legacy stretching back to China and the shards of global culture he had melded into his own identity. This book is the immigrant's story for the twenty-first century; a story of food, family, and the forging of a new notion of what it means to be an American.

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