The 37-year-old Chinatown favorite House of Nanking is releasing a cookbook next week, full of decades worth of the restaurant’s most popular recipes, plus a number of long-lost dishes that haven’t been on the menu in years.

Since its opening in 1988, Chinatown’s famed House of Nanking has been one of the city’s most beloved Chinese restaurants for both locals and tourists, and it’s certainly Keanu Reeves’s favorite. House of Nanking founders Peter and Lily Fang raised their daughter Kathy Fang practically in the restaurant, and she’s gone on to establish SoMa’s modern-fusion spot Fang restaurant, while finding foodie TV stardom as a two-time champion on Chopped, making appearances on Beat Bobby Flay, and the Fangs got their own dedicated 2022 Food Network docuseries Chef Dynasty: House of Fang.

Now, the House of Fang is getting its own cookbook. House of Nanking: Family Recipes from San Francisco's Favorite Chinese Restaurant will be released this Tuesday, September 30. It’s written by Peter and Kathy Fang, and is not only full of decades worth of House of Nanking recipes, but traces Peter Fang’s journey from Chinese immigrant to busboy, bartender, server, cook, and eventually establishing the wildly popular House of Nanking.

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“The book is very much about the journey, from my dad emigrating from China to the US, and how he became the chef that he is,” Kathy Fang tells SFist. “Because he is not classically trained. He never even worked in a restaurant prior to moving to America. He is completely self-taught.”

“There’s the stories and recipes in House of Nanking. The recipes that put us on the map,” she adds. “There’s a lot of dishes that we had from 30 years ago that people still talk about that are not on the menu anymore because you can’t keep everything, right? We’re bringing back a lot of the old classics that people loved that are no longer on the menu.”

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While the cookbook is written by Peter and Kathy Fang, it actually captures three generations of Fang family cooking, dating back to Shanghai.

“The recipes are written between my dad and I,” Kathy Fang explains. “They’ll have my dad’s voice, they’ll also have my voice, and there’s dishes that my dad remembers growing up and having, dishes his mother made for him that had a big impact on him when they lived in Shanghai.”

A press release for the book says it “recounts the Fangs’ deep-rooted passion for serving authentic Shanghainese home cooking.”

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“Chinese cuisine overall can be quite complicated, because there are so many different regional specialties,” explains Fang. “The core actually comes from the eight major cuisines in China. Jiangsu cuisine is one of them. It’s known for its umami and its mildly sweet flavor profiles. And Shanghainese is developed from the Jiangsu cuisine.

“Shanghai is also a port city, so it absorbs many different influences. It also has access to the Yangtze River. So just the amount of produce and the variety of ingredients that they had access to, it helped them create their own version of  essentially, like a Jiangsu cuisine.”

“They have such amazing produce and access to fresh seafood,” she adds. “Once the crab comes into season, they put it in everything. They put it in noodles, they put it in soup dumplings, they make buns with it, they put it over rice, tofu, anything.”

Shanghainese cuisine is also more flavorful, compared to the subtle Chinese food varieties like Cantonese. “The style that people know Shanghainese for is going to be characterized by sweet, savory,” Fang says. “It has a reputation for being very heavy-handed on sugar, soy sauce, rice wine, and MSG.”

The “home cooking” aspect comes from a version of Shanghainese cooking known as jiācháng cà; items like Soup dumplings (Xiaolongbao) and pan fried juicy pork buns (Sheng Jian Bao). “It’s really based off of simple ingredients, comfort food,” she tells us. “These are things you would find in people’s homes, and less in restaurants.”

The cookbook features items that have been on House on Nanking’s menu since Day One (the famed Nanking Sesame Chicken), right down to a few short-term seasonal dishes that were only available briefly (Thanksgiving Orange Chicken). “These are recipes that came out of Peter Fang’s brain, and were not made in any Chinese restaurant,” Fang says. “But he took Chinese techniques, methods, and ingredients and then turned it into something that was more distinctively what we call ‘Fang food.’"

“This cookbook isn’t just a cookbook,” she emphasizes. “Yes, you’re going to learn how to make all of these amazing dishes, but it’s really a preservation of culinary history that may otherwise be lost forever.”

Kathy Fang says the cookbook also describes her parents’ and journey from immigrants to culinary superstars, and “what it took for them to come across the ocean with nothing, to do this. This is not just a distinctive story of ours, I think that's a story many people can relate to, I found that out from the show. It's not just a Chinese cookbook that teaches you some wok cookery, this is a lot more than that.”

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House of Nanking: Family Recipes from San Francisco's Favorite Chinese Restaurant will be released on Tuesday, September 30, and you can preorder the book here. It will also be available at a number of SF book signing events in the weeks and months to come, seen in the Instagram post above.

Related: House of Nanking Is Getting a Food Network Docuseries Premiering Next Week [SFist]

Images: Quentin Bacon

My new shop window, courtesy of our president. pic.twitter.com/FoHurAz0Y8

— Omnivore Books (@omnivorebooks) January 28, 2017

Food-focused Noe Valley bookshop Omnivore Books is encouraging cooks in the neighborhood to learn about several of the seven countries that are included in Trump's executive order barring all travel and immigration for at least 90 days via a window display they tweeted out over the weekend. In response to the positive outpouring on Twitter reacting to the photo, store owner Celia Sack said, "Doing my part, as small as that may be," and "Don't know what else to do — [I] just feel so helpless!"

Grub Street spoke to Sack about her book choices, which include The New Persian Kitchen by Louisa Shafia, The Iraqi Family Cookbook by Kay Karim, and The Aleppo Cookbook: Celebrating the Legendary Cuisine of Syria by Marlene Matar.

Of the latter she writes it's "A comprehensive collection of recipes, but particularly striking are the simple portraits capturing daily life in Aleppo. A shopkeeper stealing a nap behind tubs of lentils and nuts, three kids hamming it up for the camera in front of an ancient door, a busy market hall teeming with people within a beautiful old building. I flip through the pages and wonder if that market hall still stands, where those three kids are now."

She also highlights several books about the cuisines of North Africa, including one, Classic Vegetarian Cooking from the Middle East & North Africa by Habeeb Salloum, about which she says "sadly not enough people pick this one up because it has no pictures," and that's "their loss" because "this book relies on skillful combinations of herbs and spices creating super flavorful vegetarian dishes."

Since the authors of f-bomb-friendly vegan cookbook Thug Kitchen revealed themselves to be a white couple from Hollywood, a firestorm of controversy has brewed around the possible racist implications of the book's title.

The general tone of the cookbook is meant to be humorous, perhaps as a reaction to the earnestness of many vegan tomes — example: the text above a recipe for vegan pina colada ice cream reads, "Starting to feel like ninety one thousand damn degrees outside? We got you. Chill the fuck out with a big ass cup of this tropical treat. All you need are five fucking ingredients and a blender." Also, the subtitle: "Eat like you give a fuck."

The uproar, along with threats of protests at a pair of Bay Area publicity appearances at Diesel Books in Oakland and Omnivore Books in Noe Valley, have led to the cancellation of both events by the book's authors, Michelle Davis and Matt Holloway, as SF Weekly reports.

The couple explained their reasoning for skipping their Bay Area stops in a statement on their website:

We love you and we think you're amazing (Michelle's from there!). We were looking forward to meeting all of you and having a real fucking conversation. But there are some who are looking to disrupt the event and create problems for these great local, small businesses--who were kind enough to partner with us on the launch so we're holding off on our visit for now. Until we get our asses back up there, we'll see you guys at our other stops!

While their website says the events have only been postponed and not cancelled altogether, it will be interesting to see if the anger of the groups leading the protests will cool with time. Many have taken issue with the use of the word "thug", especially by a white vegan couple.

The brouhaha has left book stores in an awkward position. On one hand, booksellers are usually some of the first to trumpet the rights of free speech. On the other, they are trying to sell books and don't necessarily want to alienate their customers.

Diesel books waded into the fray, posting an extensive explanation to their Facebook page saying, "The previously anonymous L.A. duo who created Thug Kitchen were booked for an event at our store well in advance of their surprise revelation, and believe us, we were surprised too. (Well, truth be told, some more than others.)"

They go on to encourage a dialogue around the issue:

DIESEL, A Bookstore believes in freedom of expression, and the authors of this cookbook have chosen their method of expression. Does the fact of their being white change their message? Is their language insultingly appropriated or just language many people use? Are you offended or do you think the humor is okay? We don't have the final answer to these questions, though lately we've been talking about them with one another plenty. We invite you to come and have your say.

It doesn't look like that conversation will be happening in the Bay Area anytime soon, however, at least not with the book's authors present, as they haven't announced any plans to return. We're guessing their next appearance in Portland on Oct. 16, home to at least a progressive vegan or two, will likely draw some heat as well.

It's official. Alice Waters released The Art of Simple Food II today. Among other tidbits, the book discusses the importance of a plant's life cycle, and how it parallels with taste and cooking. Also of note? Recipes. Lots of them.

In addition to providing another air-tight argument for eating locally and eating right, Waters offers recipes for Rocket Salad with Babcock Peaches and Basil, Moroccan Asparagus and Spring Vegetable Ragout, and Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic. The Berkeley philosopher also gives choice tips on how to grow your own fruits and vegetables.

Order it here. Oh, and here's the cover:

Chef Daniel Patterson (Coi, Haven, Plum) can be seen in this video ordering from the drive-thru at Wendy's and later picking out his favorite bulk Halloween candy at CVS. Heh. No, not really. But it's fun to jest, isn't it? In fact, the following videos show the local chef foraging in the forest and then preparing a Prather Ranch beef dish. It's all in anticipation for his new book, Coi: Stories and Recipes.

Patterson turns beautifully Ratatouille on the viewer, declaring, "I think that everyone is always deeply influenced by the tastes and smells of their childhood." He also talks ingredients. "Our dishes are often very simple, only two or three ingredients, and if anything's wrong with the cooking or ingredients, it stands out," he says.

Also, as Eater and Inside Scoop point out, he also has much to say about lichen, that smashed petal-like fungus you find blanketing tree branches and twigs. Patterson describes its taste as "earthy, mushroom-y" with "a tinge of bitterness but on the aftertaste kind of sweet." Discussing the first time he used it in a dish, he says, "I had been thinking about a new dish, so I thought, well what if I turned it in to a powder? We cooked it, dehydrated it, ground it into a powder, and it was amazing."

And there you have it. Pre-order his book here; check out both videos below:

For your Friday reassurance that yes, there is goodness and humanity in this world, we bring you a look at the new Arts & Eats cookbook, which releases today as a collaboration between Mission-based nonprofit Creativity Explored and local restaurants who've shared their recipes for a cause.

With contributions from 20 Spot, Bar Tartine, Beretta, Bi-Rite, Central Kitchen, Delfina, Farina, Flour + Water, Foreign Cinema, Locanda, Mission Chinese, Range, St. Vincent, Trick Dog and more, the book represents the best and brightest of Mission eateries. (Frances, located in the heart of the Castro, is also featured.) Recipes like chilled white corn soup from Frances, Chef Melissa Perello and chingqing chicken wings from Mission Chinese's Danny Bowien are accompanied by artwork created at Creativity Explored, the much-beloved organization that provides artists with developmental disabilities the opportunity to work as visual artists.

Printed and bound in San Francisco, the book is a delightful collection for a good cause, benefitting both Creativity Explored and the nonprofit animal rescue Creative Rescue. Scroll through for a taste of the artwork.