Cookbook

After almost three years of work, I’m so so excited to share my debut cookbook with you: My Shanghai: recipes and stories from a city on the water.

WHERE TO BUY

Archestratus / Book Larder / Now Serving LA / Kitchen Arts & LettersPorter Square BooksBelmont Books / Mised-Out / Omnivore Books / Books are Magic / Green Apple Books / Books Inc 

Bookshop / Harper Collins / Indie Bound / Books a MillionAmazon / Barnes & Noble

EVENTS

February 20th, 2021: in conversation with hetty, at NowServing LA!
March 9, 2021:
 publication date!
March 11th, 2021: Author talk at Book Larder!!
March 23, 2021: Cooking at home with ME!! Two ways to make wonton
sign up here, via Milk Street Cooking School  – use COOKWITHBETTY for 20% off

I first dreamt about this book when I started to share a few family recipes in this space and realized there were so many others, like me, who were away from home and craving the food of their childhood. I kept calling my parents to ask them how I cooked certain dishes, and so this blog began. I wrote my proposal, found an agent who believed in me from the beginning, and sold my book. I’ll be honest – writing, testing, and photographing this book through medical school and the first two years of my general surgery residency, was hard. Extremely hard. But with the support of my husband, family, agent, and the amazing team at Harper Design, I’m so so so excited to share this book with you all.

My debut cookbook, My Shanghai: recipes and stories from a city on the water. I share the story of my family’s cooking, with roots from the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, the two regions that border Shanghai. Shanghainese cuisine is not like any other in China, and I can’t wait to tell you all about it. I also bring you to discover where hairy crabs are farmed, how bamboo is foraged, and the traditions of Chinese holidays, with as much photography as I could fit into the book.

In this book I share my family’s recipes, through the lens of a modern home cook born and raised in America. A few of my favorite recipes include: my mother’s lion’s head meatballs, mung bean soup, and weekday stir-fries; her father-in-law’s pride and joy, the Nanjing salted duck; the classic red-braised pork belly (as well as a riff to turn them into gua bao!); and core basics like high stock, wontons, and fried rice.

PRESS: 

 

My Shanghai is a tour de force.  — Boston Globe

My Shanghai is a well-written cookbook about the home cooking of a family who stuck to its native cuisine notwithstanding immigration to the United States. Author and photographer Betty Liu eloquently tells the story of her family’s food culture and that of their native Shanghai as she has experienced it. Through her prose and recipes, she makes the reader feel like a guest in her family kitchen learning to shop and cook with her and her elders, and then sharing the meal together. Betty’s food styling and photography complete the package. We need many more cookbooks like My Shanghai. — Kristina Gill, co-author and photographer of Tasting Rome

So much more than a cookbook, My Shanghai is the book I’ve been waiting for. It’s filled with beautiful, personal stories and recipes that bring the vibrant, fresh, and seasonal dishes of the Jiangnan region to life. Paired with Betty’s captivating photography, I was instantly transported. A cover-to-cover read that allows readers to cook their way through the seasons, this is a book that’s sure to have the telltale food stains, notes, and wear of a well-loved companion. — Alana Kysar, author of Aloha Kitchen

An impressive collection of Shanghainese recipes…This handsome work is perfect for lovers of Chinese cuisine and for home cooks of all stripes. — Publishers Weekly

My Shanghai contains everything I look for in a cookbook: personal storytelling, trustworthy information, new-to-me recipes that teach as much as they entice, and stunning photography that’s instantly transportive. Betty Liu has raised the bar.Julia Turshen, author of Simply Julia and founder of Equity at the Table (EATT)

As a port city, Shanghai has had centuries of influence from a host of foreign cultures as well as from the rest of China. Liu, whose popular food blog has done much to promote Shanghai’s cooking, offers her take on the city’s food by categorizing its many dishes into the year’s seasons…Bright color photographs of finished dishes and step-by-step illustrations of techniques for complex forming of dumplings make recipes even more attractive. — Booklist

My Shanghai is a soulful homage…This book is a multi-sensory delight—the fresh, vibrantly seasonal flavors of her native Jiangnan cuisine are interlaced with heartfelt personal stories of growing up with her mother’s cooking, stunningly brought to life by Betty’s rich, immersive photography. It’s a timely reminder of how much we still have to learn about the cuisines of China and deftly illustrates the power of culinary storytelling to transport us. A book to sit with, ruminate over, learn from, share with friends, and of course, cook a memorable meal from. This one is going straight on my “favorite cookbooks” shelf. — Hetty McKinnon, award-winning cookbook author, food writer, and editor of Peddler Journal

My Shanghai cookbook: suzhou noodles

My Shanghai cookbook:

My Shanghai cookbook: red braised pork belly

My Shanghai cookbook: chives

My Shanghai cookbook: Shanghai bund

 

My Shanghai cookbook: suzhou mooncakes

My Shanghai cookbook: snow vegetable fish

My Shanghai cookbook: Shanghai Shaomai