Irene Li Archives - Hungry Travelers

For our readers not from the Greater Boston area, Irene Li and her siblings are the force behind the Mei Mei food truck and (now closed) Mei Mei Dumpling House (meimeidumplings.com). They're also the authors of one of the best cookbooks to hit the shelves just before the pandemic shut down the world. It's called Double Awesome Chinese Food: Irresistible and Totally Achievable Recipes from Our Chinese-American Kitchen. The ‶double awesome″ refers to Mei Mei's signature scallion pancake sandwich. Two flaky scallion pancakes spread with a little basil pesto enclose some cheddar cheese and two oozing eggs. The Double Awesome comes with spicy ketchup on the side for dipping. The name says it all. Part of what we love about the dish is that it...Read More

The motto of HungryTravelers is “bringing the taste of travel back home,” but sometimes we don't have to go very far for extraordinary flavor. The Ocean Spray Cooperative (oceanspray.com) is headquartered just 50 miles south-southeast from our home in Cambridge, Mass., but its 700-plus members in North and South America represent a world of flavor. They grow 80 percent of the globe's cranberries. Similarly, Puritan & Company restaurant is a 13-minute walk from home. Chef-owner Will Gilson champions New England cuisine, so it was logical that the restaurant host a debut dinner by the Cranberry Chef Collective last week. The CCC connects chefs to the member farmers of the cranberry cooperative. Ocean Spray estimates that more than 100 billion cranberries will be consumed this holiday...Read More

Irene Li

Mei Mei chef Irene Li is double awesome herself

Chefs and growers jointly hail the versatile cranberry