BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY

This powerful, unforgettable book is just as beautiful as its stunning cover. By now you've surely seen this one making the rounds on bookstagram, and the attention it has received is so, so well deserved. Beautiful Country is a memoir of the author's childhood as an undocumented immigrant beginning from the time she arrives in the United States from China at age seven. Once there, she and her parents live in poverty in New York City's Chinatown, consumed with the fear that her family will be deported, toiling endlessly in sweatshops and attending school hungry every day. But the story is also one of hope and healing, a perspective-changing look at the nearly insurmountable hardships of creating a life in "Mei Guo," the Chinese word for America that translates to beautiful country.

Just imagine, as a child, feeling that everything about you is wrong: your language; your different and sometimes dirty clothes; the way you eat your food (when there is food at all); even the shape of your features. Filled with vividly-recalled, often heartbreaking anecdotes, we see life in America through the author's young, fearful eyes that are always hiding in the shadows. While the shame and humiliation she endures are palpable, so are her quiet courage and unrelenting resolve. @qianjuliewang 's ultimate success and belief in herself made me cheer and weep, in one of the most moving, enlightening books I've read in recent memory.

I am SO honored and overwhelmed with gratitude that @qianjuliewang shared with me her grandmother's pork and chive dumpling recipe for this post! The chapter that recalls making dumplings in Zhong Guo was a personal favorite: "I felt the warmth of Lao Lao's dining table, the love of family wrapping me in its embrace, crossing borders and living on through time." Thank you so much @qianjuliewang for sharing your beautiful story along with this very special recipe! You are a treasure!