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Disturbing the Dust

A Memories and Recipes of China Alley
by Arianne Wing

$22, Softcover, 6x9 inches, 264 pages

62 black & white photos

64 gourmet recipes

ISBN: 979-8-218-02425-3

Published in October, 2022
by Camerick Productions
Hanford, California

Book design and production
by Lucky Valley Press
www.luckyvalleypress.com

Distributed worldwide by Ingram
Returnable by retailers

To contact the author, please visit: www.seventhandgreen.com


 

DISTURBING THE DUST

Memories and Recipes of China Alley

by Arianne Wing

“While other families leave their legacy in properties and tangible valuables, the Wing family is leaving to the future generations their clan memories, the recipes of four generations and one four-star chef, and the recorded details of China Alley history.
I am glad that Arianne is sharing her uncle’s and her family’s culinary traditions with us. Let’s honor them by remembering and sharing with the world.”

– From the Foreword by Chef Martin Yan

The Wing family of Hanford, California had a China Alley restaurant in continuous operation from 1883-2006. Their saga began when Ms. Wing’s great-grandfather fled China to escape political persecution. He found himself aboard a boat headed to California, where he ended up in the Hanford area. After working on farms and for the railroad, he returned to his family roots in the restaurant business and opened a noodle shop. This humble eatery blossomed into a successful Chinese restaurant. In 1958, the family opened the Imperial Dynasty, which served a unique menu dubbed Chinoise — best described as a cuisine of classical French dishes reinterpreted though the ancient art of Chinese cooking. But first it was a noodle house.

Disturbing the Dust chronicles the four generations of Wing clan cooks and chefs, China Alley developers and preservationists. Artfully interwoven, their stories, recipes, and images capture the Chinese American experience in central California from immigration to the present, from simple noodle house to four-star restaurant.

Wing family memories will linger in the reader’s mind. Their recipes will drive readers who cook to their kitchens and dining room tables.


ABOUT ARIANNE WING

As a member of the fourth generation of Wing chefs, servers, bussers, bartenders, and hostesses, and as the dedicated writer of the group, Arianne Wing has been in a unique position to record and arrange a compelling series of family stories and recipes passed down through the generations. She has spent hours interviewing the generations of Wings and other with China Alley experiences and knowledge, researching her mother’s extensive notes and historical references to capture on paper wisps of memory, wisdom, and tribal tales held across time. Disturbing the Dust reflects the dance and vibrant humor, the power of place, the sharing of the art of cooking, and the sacredness of home that are the beating heart of her clan.

When not tending to her garden, cooking, writing her columns, or working on her next book, giving presentations on the Chinese American experience in California’s Central Valley and her family heritage from China to California, or working with her husband Steve Banister on historical preservation projects for China Alley and downtown Hanford, Arianne Wing walks Hanford California’s China Alley, where her family settled four generations ago and where she and Steve own a tearoom, the last iteration of family cookeries from noodle house to four-star restaurant and beyond.

Like her Auntie Harriet, Arianne is an avid reader; like her grandmother, she is an ardent gardener; like her mother, she is a devoted preservationist and local historian; like her father, she has a love of Arthurian legends; like her Uncle Richard, one of her mentors, she is an exceptional culinary artist. She is mistress of the kitchen tango—and waltz—as she is of her pen and keyboard.