A powerful, touching memoir of a Chinese-American woman and her Chinese grandmother by an extraordinarily talented author who has drawn comparisons to Amy Tan and Maxine Hong Kingston.Leslie Li belongs to the illustrious Li family of Guilin, China. Her grandfather, Li Zongren, was China's first democratically elected vice president, to whom Chiang Kai-shek handed over control of the country when he fled to Formosa in 1949. Leslie's father was studying in the U.S. where he met and married Leslie's American-born mother. In 1958, Leslie's grandmother Nai-nai came to live with her son's family in New York, bringing with her a new world of sights, smells, and tastes. Nai-nai's wonderfully exotic new cooking opened Leslie's heart and mind to her Chinese heritage and to the world. As Leslie grew, taste became the stronghold of memory, and food the keeper of culture. It was through her grandmother's traditional Chinese cuisine that Leslie bridged the cultural divide in an America where she is a minority-and bridged the growing gap at home between her traditionalist father and her progressive mother. Sprinkled throughout Leslie's poignant and moving memoir are recipes from Nai-nai's kitchen that add a delicious dimension to a heartwarming tale.