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Leeann Chin:
As a restaurateur, teacher, chef, and cookbook author, Leeann Chin is living the American dream that she first imagined as a little girl. Today, she runs a multi-million dollar business that employs more than 1,200 people, has written three cookbooks, sits on the board of various organizations, and hosts cooking shows. Growing up in Canton, China, Leeann got her business sense from working in her family's grocery store. She learned to cook by assisting the family cook, known as "Auntie," and by experimenting in the family kitchen.
In 1952, at the age of 18, Leeann was married in Hong Kong. Four years later, she and her first child boarded a cruise ship to join her husband who had already emigrated to America. While settling in Minneapolis, Leeann learned English and practiced using unfamiliar ingredients such as trout, Cornish game hens, and green beans. While working as a seamstress at home, she often served dinner to her clients, who were wowed by her tasty creations. Leeann was soon teaching Chinese cooking classes and catering banquets and receptions.
In 1980, Leeann published her first cookbook, Betty Crocker's Chinese Cookbook (Hungry Minds, 1990 edition). That same year, with financial support from investors including the actor Sean Connery, she opened her first restaurant, Leeann Chin's Chinese Cuisine, in Minneapolis. Since then, she has opened 57 (and counting) restaurants. She has written three cookbooks, the latest Everyday Chinese Cooking (Clarkson Potter, 2000), with her daughter, Katie Chin.
Leeann is the recipient of many awards, including "Business Owner of the Year" from the National Association of Women Business Owners in 1998. For the past twenty years, her restaurants have been awarded the "Best Chinese Food" awards in Minneapolis.
Today, she serves on the board of directors of organizations such as the Boy Scouts of America and the Minnesota Vikings Advisory Board. She is a member of the Committee of 100, a national organization of Chinese Americans. Leeann divides her time between Seattle and Minneapolis.
Katie Chin
Born and raised in Minneapolis and the youngest of the five Chin children, Katie Chin grew up an all-American kid who liked hot dogs, pizza, and French fries. Thanks to her mother, she also had a taste for fresh vegetables with subtle sauces, dumplings, spicy meats, crisp-skinned fish, steaming bowls of white rice, and light desserts. As a schoolgirl, Katie assisted in her mother's catering jobs and worked in her restaurants. Later in college, she used her mother's first cookbook, Betty Crocker's Chinese Cookbook, as a guide to the dinner parties she threw in her college dorm room.
For many years, Katie worked in the corporate side of the entertainment industry, as Senior Vice President, Worldwide Promotions at Twentieth Century Fox and at other studios. During that time, she rarely found time to cook, surviving on restaurant food, takeout and pints of ice cream. Eventually, her mother intervened, exclaiming, "If you go to a restaurant and sit down, it's two hours...In that time you could make something healthy!"
Since then, Katie has adopted a healthier way of eating and recently collaborated with her mother to write, Everyday Chinese Cooking (Clarkson Potter, 2000), which has received coverage from magazines such as Bon Appetit and Family Circle.
In addition to her culinary projects, Katie is an entertainment marketing consultant. She is passionate about Asian cuisine, style, and culture, and is committed to teaching the American public how to incorporate the Asian lifestyle into their everyday lives.
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