Inspiration from 9,000 Miles Away
A lyrical memoir shaped by music, migration, and Macanese food.
Publishing October 2026
What It’s About
One winter morning, a voice crosses oceans and awakens an immigrant who had long set her creative self aside. What begins as an improbable flicker of inspiration, sparked by a singer she has never met, calls her back to the page after twenty-three years.
Through music, quiet moments, and Macanese dishes born of resilience and adaptability, she returns to writing, to heritage, and to the memories that have quietly shaped her life.
This is a book for anyone who has ever felt a quiet pull, been called by something inexplicable, or believed a long-resting dream might return to life.
What’s Inside
Twelve dishes. Twelve lessons.
Macanese cuisine was born in Macau of Portuguese ships and Chinese kitchens — adapted and improvised not for novelty but for love and survival. It is often called the world's first fusion food. Today it risks fading.
I spent three weeks in Macau eating my way through what remains.
Each chapter takes one dish and the thing it taught me.
Download the Minchi recipe, Macau’s national dish.
Praise
“A deeply personal memoir and cookbook that ably shows that ‘dreams do not expire. They simply rest.’” — Kirkus Reviews
“An exuberant, perceptive memoir about culinary and cultural complexities.” — Foreword Reviews
“Tender culinary memoir… generous and heartfelt.” — BookLife Reviews
Featured in Kirkus Reviews magazine (July 15, 2026) — a spotlight reserved for a limited number of Indie books.
Meena's first book, Fortune in Your Cookies, was named one of BookBrowse's Top Ten Nonfiction Debuts of 2002.
Excerpt: The 5 a.m. Voice
Inspiration rarely arrives when called. It drifts like an untethered wind, moving to rhythms only it knows – everywhere and nowhere all at once. Yet when it lands, it roots us in a place alive with unimagined possibilities.
Mine came from 9,000 miles away, an improbable moment that altered the course of my life.
100% of the Author Royalties Donated to Children’s Literacy Programs
It seems right that the gift that brought me back to words should help put words into the hands of children who need them.
