Cecilia Chiang, Who Brought Authentic Chinese Food to America, Dies at 100

Cecilia Chiang, whose San Francisco restaurant, the Mandarin, introduced American diners in the 1960s to the richness and variety of authentic Chinese cuisine, died on Wednesday at her home in San Francisco. She was 100.

Ms. Chiang came to the United States from China as a daughter of wealth who had fled the Japanese during World War II, traveling nearly 700 miles on foot. Once in San Francisco, she proceeded, largely by happenstance and almost single-handedly, to bring Chinese cuisine from the chop suey and chow mein era into the more refined one of today, enticing diners with the dishes she ate growing up in her family’s converted Ming-era palace in Beijing.

The Mandarin, which opened in 1962 as a 65-seat restaurant on Polk Street in the Russian Hill section and later operated on Ghirardelli Square, near Fisherman’s Wharf, offered patrons unheard-of specialties at the time, like potstickers, Chongqing-style spicy dry-shredded beef, peppery Sichuan eggplant, moo shu pork, sizzling rice soup and glacéed bananas.

In a profile of Ms. Chiang in 2007, The San Francisco Chronicle wrote that her restaurant “defined upscale Chinese dining, introducing customers to Sichuan dishes like kung pao chicken and twice-cooked pork, and to refined preparations like minced squab in lettuce cups; tea-smoked duck; and beggar’s chicken, a whole bird stuffed with dried mushrooms, water chestnuts and ham and baked in clay.”

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I voted yesterday.

Went to the town municipal building where the early polling site was.

Since I already had a mail-in ballot, I didn't have to wait in line, but went straight to the designated desk and dropped it into the sealed box.

Today, we got the news that the Board of Elections in my county (we have 17 designated early-voting sites*) has extended the early voting hours for each day by 1 hour (at closing time).
Must be massive turnout all around for them to do that.

One of the poll workers told me they had as of Tuesday afternoon over 3000 live in-person voters (not to mention numerous mail-in voters)

(* In addition, there's the Board of Elections county office itself, for mail-in ballots only)

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Yay!! The Lincoln Project is evaluating the 2 town halls right now.

Their comments are verrrry entertaining. . .and on point.

Rachel Maddow, Kamala Harris and The Fly. . .

on Mike Pence:

"Beau of the Fifth Column" FLUNKS Amy Coney Barrett. . .

. . .over the Five Freedoms of the First Amendment. . .

Wow! "Beau of the Fifth Column" FLUNKS Amy Coney Barrett. . .

. . .over the "Five Freedoms" of the First Amendment. . .

The Lincoln Project: "Darling, Darling, Darling"