{"id":36216,"date":"2014-11-24T09:10:31","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T14:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=36216"},"modified":"2015-08-17T09:53:49","modified_gmt":"2015-08-17T13:53:49","slug":"eating-wildly-foraging-for-life-love-and-the-perfect-meal-by-ava-chin-author-profile-in-bloom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/eating-wildly-foraging-for-life-love-and-the-perfect-meal-by-ava-chin-author-profile-in-bloom\/","title":{"rendered":"Eating Wildly: Foraging for Life, Love and the Perfect Meal by Ava Chin + Author Profile [in Bloom]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Eating<\/a>Eating Wildly<\/em> for the Belly and Soul with Ava Chin<\/strong><\/p>\n

These days, Ava Chin<\/a> is living her happy beginnings: she\u2019s the mother to an energetic toddler, wife to the man of her dreams, professor of creative nonfiction and journalism<\/a> at her undergrad alma mater, and \u2013 whenever she has time \u2013 an in-demand urban forager of wild garlic, shamrocks, mulberries, and even the elusive morel. Most recently, her new book, Eating Wildly: Foraging for Life, Love and the Perfect Meal<\/em>, just made Library Journal<\/em>\u2019s \u201cBest Books of 2014\u201d in Memoirs<\/a>. Those \u2018Best of\u2019-compilations are just starting, so remember the title … you\u2019re sure to see it again and again on lists to come.<\/p>\n

Eating Wildly<\/em> is Chin\u2019s journey to \u2018happy\u2019: as with most fairy tales, mixed in with the good parts are many difficulties to be endured, obstacles to be vanquished, losses to overcome. Chin\u2019s story begins even before she was born \u2013 when her father left her pregnant mother, never to return. Her parents\u2019 marriage was brief \u2013 they never lived together \u2013 although her father walked the aisle (thus far, anyway) five times, twice to the same woman; her mother was number two. As the deserted single parent, Chin\u2019s mother hung on to her anger and resentment for decades. Thankfully, Chin had the grounding of her maternal grandparents, who nurtured, loved, and fed her belly and soul. Yet without a nuclear family \u2013 especially lacking an example of a loving partnership which she could emulate \u2013 the adult Chin suffered through one broken relationship after another. Fast approaching 40, Chin went searching for nourishment elsewhere \u2013 literally. She signed up for a casual NYC Central Park tour with renowned naturalist Steve Brill<\/a>; the tour introduced to her the art of foraging for edible plants in public places, an experience that taught her to look around her with new eyes … and actually led her on the path to physical and emotional fulfillment. And that\u2019s the delicious, toothsome story of this memoir-with-recipes.<\/p>\n

Born in Queens, Chin was the only child of an only daughter. Her mother \u2013 a former Miss Chinatown \u2013 was emotionally distant, absent more often than not during Chin\u2019s childhood. Her fondest memories recall her mother\u2019s parents: \u201cWhile Grandpa expanded the ever-widening reaches of my palate with culinary delights, it was Grandma who gave me lessons on life.\u201d Grandpa, \u201ca former Toisanese village boy\u201d who cooked in various Chinese restaurants throughout New York City, and Grandma, \u201cthe smarty-pants of her family\u201d who was her school salutatorian and first woman in the family to attend college, were Chin\u2019s stalwart, stable support.<\/p>\n

Small arguments aside, she severely tested the relationship just once \u2013 when, in her mid-20s, she went searching for her father. When she finally found him \u2013 still living in New York City \u2013 their reunion was not the emotional release that Chin had hoped for; her attempts to engage him in an ongoing relationship were rife with repeated disappointments. Most surprisingly, she wasn\u2019t prepared for the vehemence of her grandparents\u2019 fury and even temporary banishment: \u201cAll we did for you! This is how we repay us?\u201d her grandmother shouted, but far more frightening was Grandpa, who was by then dying of cancer, and who, feeling especially abandoned and betrayed, went utterly silent. Chin tried desperately to make him understand: \u201cIt was because of you … You\u2019ve always been a father to me, and now we\u2019re losing you … I want to be a parent one day \u2013 like you and Grandma. But how can I be a good parent if I don\u2019t even know or understand what went on between my own?\u201d When the silence became unbearable, Chin\u2019s elusive mother surprised everyone and stepped in to reconnect her parents with her daughter.<\/p>\n

Marked by what Chin perceived to be abandonment again and again, she remained single for decades. By her late 30s, she could boast of many, many<\/em> accomplishments: multiple degrees, community activism, a lauded column, \u201cUrban Forager<\/a>,\u201d for the New York Times<\/em>, celebrated slam poetry and short stories, an essay collection she edited about divorced families, teaching in the classroom and in the wilds. Living solo definitely wasn\u2019t on her list of goals. And yet, at 39, once more, the man she thought she might marry, proved he wasn\u2019t Mr. Right; after years of excuses, Chin realized she deserved better than just settling for someone less.<\/p>\n

Her grandparents had both passed away, her father was once again out of her life, her mother remained emotionally unavailable, and her partner prospects were indefinitely on hold; Chin was left spinning. Eventually, she learned to reexamine her life through \u201cforaging eyes.\u201d The same concentrated sight with which she found oyster mushrooms and lambs quarters and mugwort became the key to approaching her own life:<\/p>\n

In the seasons that I\u2019ve spent searching for wild edibles, taking long walks as solace after a breakup, or searching for fruit-bearing trees after the death of a loved one, I\u2019ve learned that nature has a way of revealing things in its own time, providing discoveries along the way\u2014from morel mushrooms bursting through the soil to a swarm of on-the-move bees scouting out a new home …[i]t\u2019s the unexpected bounty and regenerative powers of nature that have deepened my connection with my hometown, my family, and even myself, transforming old feelings of being \u2018not good enough\u2019 or \u2018unworthy\u2019 into new ways of seeing and being.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mushrooms would eventually, finally lead Chin to Mr. Right, whom she met \u2013 fittingly \u2013 at a friend\u2019s party for Sukkot, the Jewish harvest festival. The connection was nearly instant, encouraged by a walk home, then a dinner date. But what solidified the burgeoning relationship was indeed those elusive fungi: when Chin invited her new man to an upcoming mushroom hunt, his reaction was … well … exactly right. His excitement told Chin that this one was different, this one was what her foraging eyes had been patiently waiting for all along.<\/p>\n

Presented over a year\u2019s worth of seasons, Eating Wildly<\/em> is, on the surface, a detailed guidebook on how and when to forage and for what. Dovetailed into Chin\u2019s urban foodie adventures are the stories that make up her life. After a full cycle of fall, winter, spring, summer, and once again fall, what Chin finds \u2013 and the lucky reader, too \u2013 is the surprising abundance she thought was missing:<\/p>\n

All that time growing up in Flushing, my mother and I acted as if our resources were scarce \u2013 there was never enough time or love or money to go around to sustain us. But, in truth, there was plenty all around. We just didn\u2019t know where to look.<\/em><\/p>\n

The annual season of gratitude commences this week: try this toothsome advice \u2013 \u201cforaging for life, love and the perfect meal\u201d should get you off to just the right start.<\/p>\n

Author profile<\/strong>:“Eating Wildly<\/em> for the Belly and Soul with Ava Chin,” Bloom<\/em>, November 24, 2013<\/a><\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eating Wildly for the Belly and Soul with Ava Chin These days, Ava Chin is living her happy beginnings: she\u2019s the mother to an energetic toddler, wife to the man of her dreams, professor of creative nonfiction and journalism at her undergrad alma mater, and \u2013…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4,21,107,20,6535],"tags":[6005,182,6608,59,6004,10,109,11,135,111,13,129,309],"class_list":["post-36216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-author-interview-profile","category-chinese-american","category-memoir","category-nonfiction","category-repost","tag-ava-chin","tag-bloom","tag-bookdragon","tag-cultural-exploration","tag-eating-wildly","tag-family","tag-food","tag-friendship","tag-grandparents","tag-how-to","tag-love","tag-mother-daughter-relationship","tag-nature"],"yoast_head":"\nEating Wildly: Foraging for Life, Love and the Perfect Meal by Ava Chin + Author Profile [in Bloom] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/eating-wildly-foraging-for-life-love-and-the-perfect-meal-by-ava-chin-author-profile-in-bloom\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Eating Wildly: Foraging for Life, Love and the Perfect Meal by Ava Chin + Author Profile [in Bloom] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Eating Wildly for the Belly and Soul with Ava Chin These days, Ava Chin is living her happy beginnings: she\u2019s the mother to an energetic toddler, wife to the man of her dreams, professor of creative nonfiction and journalism at her undergrad alma mater, and \u2013...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/eating-wildly-foraging-for-life-love-and-the-perfect-meal-by-ava-chin-author-profile-in-bloom\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-11-24T14:10:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-08-17T13:53:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2014\/10\/Eating-Wildly-e1434045207700.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"667\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Eating Wildly: Foraging for Life, Love and the Perfect Meal by Ava Chin + Author Profile [in Bloom] - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/eating-wildly-foraging-for-life-love-and-the-perfect-meal-by-ava-chin-author-profile-in-bloom\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Eating Wildly: Foraging for Life, Love and the Perfect Meal by Ava Chin + Author Profile [in Bloom] - BookDragon","og_description":"Eating Wildly for the Belly and Soul with Ava Chin These days, Ava Chin is living her happy beginnings: she\u2019s the mother to an energetic toddler, wife to the man of her dreams, professor of creative nonfiction and journalism at her undergrad alma mater, and \u2013...","og_url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/eating-wildly-foraging-for-life-love-and-the-perfect-meal-by-ava-chin-author-profile-in-bloom\/","og_site_name":"BookDragon","article_published_time":"2014-11-24T14:10:31+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-08-17T13:53:49+00:00","og_image":[{"width":667,"height":1000,"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2014\/10\/Eating-Wildly-e1434045207700.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@SmithsonianAPA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/eating-wildly-foraging-for-life-love-and-the-perfect-meal-by-ava-chin-author-profile-in-bloom\/","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/eating-wildly-foraging-for-life-love-and-the-perfect-meal-by-ava-chin-author-profile-in-bloom\/","name":"Eating Wildly: Foraging for Life, Love and the Perfect Meal by Ava Chin + Author Profile [in Bloom] - BookDragon","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-11-24T14:10:31+00:00","dateModified":"2015-08-17T13:53:49+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/eating-wildly-foraging-for-life-love-and-the-perfect-meal-by-ava-chin-author-profile-in-bloom\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/eating-wildly-foraging-for-life-love-and-the-perfect-meal-by-ava-chin-author-profile-in-bloom\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/eating-wildly-foraging-for-life-love-and-the-perfect-meal-by-ava-chin-author-profile-in-bloom\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Eating Wildly: Foraging for Life, Love and the Perfect Meal by Ava Chin + Author Profile [in Bloom]"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/","name":"BookDragon","description":"Books for the Diverse Reader","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d","name":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/@SmithsonianAPA"],"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author\/riemert\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36216"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36216"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36509,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36216\/revisions\/36509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}