From Sheng...

As the book is finally here - both Sami and I are thrilled and so proud of ourselves. What a journey for us - we been waiting for this moment. We feel a lot of excitement, but at the same time we are nervous as we plan events to launch to our new book.

Why did you write your book?

We went from writing our book to marketing it without being able to catch our breath! Magazines, newspapers and online cooking sites have been asking us about Cooking From the Heart. A frequent question is, "Why did you write your cookbook?" The short answer is - we wrote it to document the wonderful, unique flavors of the Hmong Kitchen. We also hope this book will help preserve Hmong culture, and introduce some new dishes to other people.

Kua Txob

Kua Txob (hot chili condiment) is made with fiery-hot Thai chili peppers, green onions, cilantro, lime juice, salt, fish sauce and sometimes a little sugar. Pounding the ingredients together with a mortar and pestle brings out the flavor. However, there are so many ways to make this dish that we have included eleven different variations in Cooking From the Heart: The Hmong Kitchen in America. Kua Txob is one of the bold flavors we hope everyone will try.

Book Launch

Busy times! Every day emails fly back and forth between us and Heather Skinner, a publicist for the University of Minnesota Press, working out the details of a trip to Minnesota to launch our book. We are excited that the Hmong Cultural Center in St. Paul has agreed to sponsor a Meet the Author Event and book signing on May 21, 3-5 PM. After a few more details are in place we will list all of our appearances on our Web site. We are looking forward to meeting people who are interested in Hmong cooking!

Final Edits

The final details are being worked out between us and Melody Lacina, an editor at Wilstad & Taylor, the firm hired by the Press to copy-edit and design our book. We are VERY glad they are perfectionists, but sometimes it seems like we will never be done. We have both decided that when the last "t" is crossed and the last "i" is dotted, we will take our husbands (in our respective cities) out for a nice meal to celebrate - with someone else doing the cooking and the cleanup. Take a look at the pile of manuscripts we have created in the last year, going back and forth with revision after revision.