Gabrielle Widjaja has spent the last three months working with Send Chinatown Love to create Around The Table, a digital cookbook that celebrates food and the power of a strong community. Asian-owned businesses struggled even before New York City enacted its stay-at-home order causing these restaurants and stores to lose 60-70% of their typical revenue due to unnecessary and abhorrent racist rhetoric.
Send Chinatown Love is a project created to keep Chinatown communities alive during a time of uncertainty. Inspired by the Lazy Susans that were constantly spinning throughout Sunday dim-sum that now are at a halt, the book's design features endless geometric circles and round-table discussions that will undoubtedly help keep these stores and restaurants around. Each page is brimming with small business' stories, previously top-secret family recipes, and drool-worthy pictures. This book has created a beaming moment in a dark time and will surely inspire great dishes and a force of positivity through its message and fantastic design.
Over the past 3 months, I’ve been working with the Send Chinatown Love team on their first ever digital cookbook which also celebrates SCL’s 1 year anniversary! Around the Roundtable is a book themed around the idea of Lazy Susans, “roundtable” discussion with our merchants, and community care. I hoped to pay homage to NYC Chinatowns visual ephemera through this creative direction via the use of color and type. I had the opportunity to collab with such amazing photographers, copywriters, and other team members and I think together we brought an amazing thing to life! We invite you to share a seat at our table. Visit link to download the free pdf. If you fall in love with the recipes like we have, please consider making a $15 suggested donation as a thank you to our merchants. ❤️
The story of Send Chinatown Love begins at the intersection of food and community. In the cookbook, you’ll find immigrant stories & revered family recipes sourced directly from Chinatown business owners.
Our team worked hard to translate dishes, some which were only ever made from memory, into recipes with exact measurements we can all take home. This was a chance to finally share the diverse story of our food, not a narrative told & profited off by others.
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