Three Meals Four Seasons — My Cookbook

I’m currently working on my first cookbook, Three Meals, Four Seasons – A Year of Chinese Flavours for Every Table, which will be published in December 2026.

How the Idea Came Together

Writing a physical cookbook has always been somewhere at the back of my mind since I started this blog. Over the years, I’ve had conversations with publishers, but I never quite felt ready. I didn’t have a clear way to bring my recipes together into a book that felt coherent and true to how I cook at home.

That changed when the idea of Three Meals, Four Seasons/三餐四季 came to me. It immediately felt right, a simple framework that could hold everything together. By then, I also felt more ready in other ways: my understanding of the cuisine had deepened, my recipe writing had improved, and I had a much clearer sense of what my readers are looking for. All of this combined made me feel that the time was right to finally work on a physical cookbook.

While the blog is where I share recipes one by one, a cookbook allows me to bring them together in a more complete and cohesive way. With a thoughtful theme, a clear structure, and new dishes added, it becomes something you can cook from and return to in a different way.

What the Book Is About

Three Meals, Four Seasons reflects how I cook at home — simple, everyday Chinese dishes that fit naturally into daily life. The idea comes from the Chinese concept of 三餐四季 (sān cān sì jì), finding comfort in the rhythm of regular meals and the quiet changes across the seasons.

The book is organised by seasons, with dishes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, along with iconic recipes for festivals and special occasions from the Chinese calendar, including a dedicated chapter on Chinese New Year.

The recipes are written with home cooks in mind, using accessible ingredients and clear, practical methods, without compromising the identity of each dish.

How I Put Together the Proposal

Before a cookbook is commissioned, it usually starts with a proposal. It’s essentially a plan for the book (think a business plan), outlining the idea, structure, and direction so a publisher can see what you’re trying to make.

Putting this together took me nearly three months. It felt very different from writing for the blog. Instead of focusing on individual recipes, I had to step back and think about how everything fits together, how to present Chinese home cooking in a clear, structured way that reflects how I cook.

It also made me think more carefully about what kind of book I wanted to write. Not just a collection of recipes, but something with a clear voice and purpose. For me, it’s less about telling my own story, and more about sharing the cuisine in a way that feels honest, practical, and useful for home cooks.

As shown in the table of contents screenshot above, the proposal covers several aspects of the book: why I’m the right person to write it, how it fits in the market, its positioning, structure, and a full recipe list. The recipe list didn’t come together overnight. I checked my “cookbook ideas” folder, and the first note was from January 2021. So in many ways, this part had been building for years.

I also included a chapter essay and nine recipes as sample writing. The essay gave me a chance to write in a slightly different, more evocative way, which I really enjoyed.

Many proposals are quite text-heavy, but I included a lot of visuals. That reflects how I work, but also helps set the tone and gives a clearer sense of how I imagine the book to look and feel.

This proposal was later shortlisted for the Jane Grigson Trust Sous Chef Award, which recognises promising work at the proposal stage. It was a really encouraging moment early on.