American Piper Stremmel collects recipes from chefs in Shanghai, where she lived for more than two years, to come up with the book Shanghai Chefs: A Cookbook. [Photo provided to China Daily]

But ask her where she and her boyfriend most liked to eat, and it's suddenly clear how this young dynamo came to produce Shanghai Chefs: A Cookbook, a 270-page coffee-table book that was published late last year.

"Oh gosh! The pork spare ribs at Di Shui Dong! That's a cool Hunan restaurant just down street from where we lived. The food is traditional and soooo spicy. We must have eaten there two or three times a week. Celebrations, birthdays, going-away parties, you name it. It's a bustling place with a lively staff, all from Hunan so there is a real family feeling there. When my parents came, it was the first place I took them.

"The ribs are a bit like Xinjiang food－all that cumin and red pepper," she sighs. "It was the dish everyone ordered. We became friends with the manager because we were local, but I didn't think they would give me the recipe. That's the recipe in the book I was proudest to get."