What was meant to be a simple interview turns out to be a warm friendship, and the two spend more and more time together - giving ample scope for detailed discussion on the intricacies of Chinese gastronomy and food history. Being in Beijing provides her with the perfect excuse to interview for her magazine a Chinese-American chef of traditional Chinese food, Sam Liang, brought to China by his desire to learn about Chinese cuisine at the source and now engaged in a national food contest. In 'The Last Chinese Chef' we follow the adventures of Maggie McEllroy, a widowed food writer brought to China by an unexpected paternity claim against her late husband's estate. Her narratives seem to follow a pattern: one or two American characters find themselves brought to China by a chain of events, and, once there, while working hard at searching for fossils, ceramics or the perfect meal, see a country full of contradictions and fall in love. It showed in her first novel, 'Lost in Translation,' and even more so in her second effort, 'A Cup of Light.' In the latter, she displayed a subtle understanding of ceramics, the seedy world of smugglers and fakes-dealers, and the delicate beauty of Ming dynasty porcelains. Mones, a former businesswoman who spent 18 years working in Beijing with a textile company, has a surprising knowledge of classical China.
