From Jian, Helen, and Xin
Home of the  “Real & Healthy Chinese Cooking” cookbook

Dear Friends,

Hello! Welcome to our humble little corner of the web.  Chinesefooddiy.com was originally started by Nicholas Zhou way back in 2003, but recently in 2011 our family took ownership of the site to pursue our passion of cooking Chinese food.  We want to share our love of Chinese food with the world via this website and our newsletter.  Feel free to sign up to our newsletter on the right to receive free original Chinese recipes!

Now a little about us:

Jian Lu – Jian is the Director of Recipe production and the father in our nuclear family. He is a born food lover and he loves to cook. He graduated from Nanjing Agricultural University majoring in the Agricultural Economics, and earned a MBA degree from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He has taught university students in Yangzhou University for ten years before he moved to United States in 1992. He created many Chinese dishes for his family and friends. Jian currently is working as Accounting Manager for a nonprofit organization in San Francisco.

Helen Wang – Helen is the loving mother and the Chief Editor of the site. She graduated from English Literature Major of Nanjing University and has a MBA from University of Hawaii at Manoa. She  taught English in Yangzhou University for seven years before she moved to United States in 1991. Recently she translated a portion of the Nobel Literature Prize Winner Pearl S. Buck’s novel A House Divided to Chinese and it was published by Chinese People’s Literature Publishing House in January, 2010.

Xin Lu – Xin is the only child of Jian and Helen.  She is the managing director and Chief Technical Officer of our site.  Xin has a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from U.C. Berkeley and loves to eat and write.  She has been spoiled by her parents’ food and she wants to share it with the world.  She also writes at Wise Bread about saving money and is one of the co-authors of the book 10,001 Ways to Live Large on a Small Budget.

We are an ordinary family originally from Yangzhou, China. Currently we live in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is a melting pot of different people, cultures and food. In our lifetime, we have experienced great famines and also enjoyed the most expensive dining experiences in the world at restaurants with three Michelin stars. After having tasted the food from all over the world, we still have an insatiable appetite for Chinese food. Chinese food has a long history and is unique in many different ways. It has its own rhythms, melodies, and aesthetics. For thousands of years, it has been evolving in its own ways and nourished generations of the largest population in the world. Our passion about Chinese food is coded in our blood cells and genes. We aim to keep the authenticity of the Chinese food we create, but we are also interested in creating new Chinese food and bringing Chinese cuisine to a new level.  The following is our manifesto.

Do it yourself

There is an old Chinese saying” Food is as important as the sky for ordinary people” (民以食为天 Ming Yi Shi Wei Tian). We, the ordinary people, make our food in a do it yourself way. All our materials, ingredients, cook tools and equipments are ordinary. We will cook gourmet meals without gourmet kitchens. We promote self-reliance and self- independent, which is not only a Chinese value, but a virtue valued around the world.

Be thrifty and save money

Chinese food materials and ingredients are inexpensive. You can feed a huge family on just a few dollars. If we all cooked Chinese food more often we can beef up our bank accounts.

Enjoy family and friends

We promote family values and friendships. Our food will act as the cement which binds family members and friends together, create a fountain to spread fun, enjoyment and happiness, and drive away pains, sorrows and loneliness.

Promote Healthy Food

Contrary to popular belief, real Chinese food is healthy. Ordinary Chinese food already provides a balanced diet. However, there is an unlimited field where particular foods are believed to be good to treat different diseases. Scientific or superstitious, there is an unexplored frontier for our adventures.

“One thousand mile journey starts from the first step”. Let’s start our Chinese DIY journey together, with the fun and with the joy, to create the greatest feast which will be enjoyed by our friends and loved ones.

We are still currently selling the cookbook Real and Healthy Chinese Cooking, and eventually we will add to the book and expand it.  We will also create more cookbooks of our own!  Meanwhile, the existing content on this site will not change very much because all the content are quite good.  Enjoy!

“Real and Healthy Chinese Cooking”
http://chinesefooddiy.com/cookbooks.htm