Asian Tofu Release & Book Trailer

Today my book releases. To mark the occasion, I’m leading this post with a photo of my mother next to a block of homemade silken tofu (the flecks are lemon zest). Why? Simply because she partly inspired the Asian Tofu cookbook. Me Gia (Old Mother in Vietnamese) prompted me to rethink dau phu/dau hu (tofu in Vietnamese), which led me to research, travel, and write this book.

I started out thinking that I knew tofu but quickly realized that I had lots to learn. Tofu’s history, meanings, and uses are vast and absolutely fascinating. I’ve tried to pack as much of all of that into the book, which is why Asian Tofu contains recipes and technical tips, as well as background information and people’s personal stories.

To give you a holistic perspective on the book, the Mighty Tofu Team at Ten Speed Press (creative director Betsy Stromberg and editor Melissa Moore) and I put together a short book trailer. We finished it last week and it’s ready for your prime time viewing:

 

This book differs from Into the Vietnamese Kitchen and Asian Dumplings in that it’s not about a single cuisine or is it totally technique driven. It’s a lens for experiencing Asian foodways. We have studio photos as well as travel shots that I took and others contributed.

Responses, Availability & Events

The initial reaction to and interest in Asian Tofu has been amazingly great. Along with the feature in Martha Stewart Living magazine and positive reviews by San Francisco and others, Amazon selected Asian Tofu as one of its top cookbooks of February 2012. Sunset magazine supported the topic by inviting me to curate and develop a collection of tofu recipes for their March issue. 

I began working on Asian Tofu in late 2009. A good 2 1/2 years later, the cookbook has officially been birthed, published, and released. Check it out in the form of a hardcover, regular ebook (same content as the hardcover but in a digital format), or enhanced ebook (with instructional videos and travelogues); for more details on the two ebook formats, see this post.  [Update: From today till March 2, Bon Appetit magazine is running an Asian Tofu cookbook giveaway (click for details).]

The format you choose depends on your interest, lifestyle, and reading device (i.e., Nook, Kindle, or iPad and their varied versions). If you haven’t already, view a sample instructional video and download a recipe sampler from the “Asian Tofu Sneak Peek.”

If you’re interested in classes, demos, and book talks, I have a number scheduled for March, April, and May, mostly in the Bay Area and New York City. Check the events listing for details.

I hope you like or are curious about tofu because I’ll be doing a few more posts on the subject in the future. Actually, I been stockpiling information to share and chat about with you.

If you have tofu-related questions or topic suggestions, let me know below and I’ll add them to my to-do list.