My Philosophy

My goal here is to share updated authentic recipes — mostly inspired by my Chinese heritage — with a heavy dose of research on history, cultural context, and cooking methods. I always begin my research for Chinese food recipes with Chinese language sources. Then I try to update these to be more accessible in an everyday kitchen. I hope my recipes encourage you to explore a new culture or reconnect with your heritage.

I present tips and tricks to make my favorite foods simpler and healthier, and your kitchen life easier. As a trader for almost 10 years, I am always looking to make processes more efficient. As a math major and the daughter of doctors, my gold standard is peer-reviewed research and lots of A/B testing. I love analysis! Nothing makes me happier than coming up with the best version of everything, so every product or method I recommend is based on obsessive research followed by plenty of personal testing.

The Rice Lover?!?

Amy transliterates to Chinese as 艾米 (ài mǐ), which is a homonym for 爱米, “love rice”, hence The Rice Lover. White rice is basically my favorite food, so I guess it’s pretty fitting.

My actual Chinese name is 彧 (yù), meaning literary. Most famously, I share my name with 荀彧 Xún Yù, a famous advisor to 曹操 Cáo Cāo in the Eastern Han Dynasty whose story is immortalized in 三国演义 “Romance of the Three Kingdoms”.

Language

Although my family immigrated to the US when I was very young, I am fully bilingual in English and (Mandarin) Chinese. I’m also a Francophile who studied French for many years. But since I’m lactose intolerant, my love of French food requires a little creativity to satisfy.

This site features dual-language recipes as well as plenty of relevant Chinese text with 拼音 pīnyīn. If you’re a learner of Chinese or heritage speaker looking to improve, I’d love to hear from you. Watching Chinese TV shows is the best way I’ve found to strengthen Chinese language skills, and I have tons of recommendations!