The World Eats Here

February 17, 2020
This colorfully illustrated debut celebrates the Queens Night Market, the culinarily diverse borough’s popular April-to-October weekly food festival. Market founder Wang and his artist wife, Garner, interviewed more than 50 vendors, nearly all immigrants or children of immigrants from more than 40 countries, and provide 88 recipes. Laura Joseph was born in Antigua and now runs La’Maoli at the market, where her family recipe, Antiguan seafood soup, is full of conch, octopus, mussels, and shrimp. Zahra Lee came to New Jersey by way of Tehran, studied with the Institute of Culinary Education, and here offers up a Persian halva, aka saffron fudge. Though substitute ingredients are listed, home cooks seeking to create an authentic global feast will need access to a variety of specialty goods. Guyanese beef patties call for wiri wiri chile peppers; Moldovan placinta
(savory cheese pies) use a sheep’s milk cheese called brinza; and ohno kaukswe, a coconut chicken noodle soup from Myanmar, is thickened with besan flour. This wildly diverse collection introduces a galaxy of flavors.

March 27, 2020

The Queens Night Market, which operates during every summer, is a food paradise, full of every kind of international cuisine imaginable. This collection features recipes from many of the market's popular vendors, including dishes such as jerk chicken, cheese arepas, and dosas with chicken curry. In the introduction, market founder Wang shares his background and how this endeavor got started. Throughout, interviews by Garner, Wang's wife, with various vendors, inspire and present stories about themselves and their families through their food business. Many of the vendors are immigrants and, in addition to working at the market, have other careers. VERDICT A wonderful multicultural hodgepodge of food, family, and love, and an excellent representation of cuisine from around the world with easy recipes for all levels.--Holly Skir, Broward Cty. Lib., FL

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2020
Former attorney and Queens Night Market founder Wang started with the desire to create a cultural event that would celebrate the diverse population of the city. Artist, filmmaker, musician, and writer Garner created the Kickstarter video that got the project off the ground, before embarking on an oral history project documenting the stories of the market participants. The Night Market grew to become an epic food festival/community gathering that is as much about the vendors and their stories as it is about the food itself. As varied as those participants themselves, the recipes here showcase cuisines from across the globe. With an introduction detailing the creator's background and inspiration, each recipe includes a very manageable number of ingredients and steps. Charmingly designed and illustrated with a mix of photographs and hand-drawn depictions of ingredients and dishes, the effect is that of a cherished cookbook that has been handed from friend to friend. The magic of the event is really captured by this book, which also serves as an enticement to the reader to attend.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)