Oral historian’s global cookbook inspired by Queens Night Market
BY TAMMY SCILEPPI
She’s the queen of New York’s Queens
Night Market, and she loves a good story.
Meet Storm Garner, a multi-talented
creative, who happens to be QNM founder
John Wang’s better half.
Born in Washington, D.C., and raised
in Paris, Garner spent many carefree
years finding herself through music, acting,
writing and filmmaking. It was her
expertise in oral history and passion for
storytelling that would ultimately lead to
a deep interest in Queens Night Market’s
immigrant vendor-chefs, who shared authentic
recipes and tales of home, work,
and family with her.
Eventually, a narrative cookbook
followed, aptly called, “The World Eats
Here: Amazing Food and the Inspiring
People Who Make It at New York’s
Queens Night Market” (The Experiment),
which Garner co-authored with
her husband, and is set for release April
28. It’s available to pre-order now.
“I guess I’ve just always had a lot of
creative energy, and a sort of obsession
with communication: how people relate
to one another with stories and aesthetics,
how certain gestures or sounds
or sentences or colors can transform
strangers into friends, or incite laughter,
or tears, or wonder – depending on the
context,” Garner said.
The 272-page book is chock-full of regional
cuisines from all over the world:
from Hong Kong to Haiti, from Colombia
to Mauritius – and many more places in
between. You’ll find captivating stories
derived from Garner’s long-form interviews
with 50 or so participating vendors
representing 40-plus countries, who
share 88 taste-of-home recipes, life stories
and experiences working with food
and navigating multicultural identities.
Readers will also enjoy 225-plus photos
and illustrations.
Chef Andrew Zimmern, four-time
James Beard award winner and creator
and host of Bizarre Foods, sang the
book’s praises.
“I have touted Queens for 15 years
as the greatest food destination in the
world. This book will help you fall in love
with the food from this special place and,
more importantly, its people,” he said.
Garner said her first goal in oral history
was “to document the incredible
diversity of stories that anyone could potentially
2 Dinners & 1 Bottle of Wine
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TIMESLEDGER | 28 QNS.COM | FEB. 14-20, 2020
hear any given night at QNM,
and to share a bit of that magic with an
even larger audience.” So, two years ago,
she started Columbia University’s masters
program in oral history, for guidance,
while setting up her thesis, “The
Queens Night Market Vendor Stories
Oral History Project.”
“Overall, John was in charge of curating
and editing the recipes and headnotes
for the book; he helped draft and edit
some vendor stories, I helped test some
recipes,” she noted. “Most importantly,
John kept me well-fed and hydrated during
long hours writing at my desk!”
In “The World Eats Here,” you’ll
meet hardworking vendors like Joey
Batista of Joey Bats Café, whose Pastéis
de nata (Portuguese Custard Tarts) are
to die for; Wanda Chiu of Hong Kong
Street Food, whose pan-fried noodles remind
her of cold winter mornings before
school; and you’ll find out more about
chef Kika Radz of Brooklyn Dumpling,
who makes tasty Kopytka (Polish potato
gnocchi).
You can learn to make many dishes
that have actually been sold at QNM,
like Jaina Teeluck’s favorite Mauritian
Chicken Biryani recipe (sold at the Pereybeurre
tent), or Institute of Culinary
Education-trained chef Hendra Lie’s
Tahu Gejrot (Indonesian fried tofu), or
Liia Minnebaeva’s Bashkir farm cheese
donuts — a treat from her childhood in
Oktyabrsky in Western Russia, which
she sells under the Wembie tent.
“Oral history is a great way to find
those under-told stories in the first place,
to hear directly from people who have experienced
something you haven’t, and to
make sure you’re getting the story right,”
Garner said, noting that her vendor interviews
will be archived and available
for educational use in a few years.
Garner said she hopes to start integrating
audio clips into the live Saturday
Night Market experience itself
this spring as a free audio installation.
A handful of audio clips will be online
starting in April, as a “soft launch,”
which will be developed over the course
of the next season, adding participating
vendors to the project each week, according
to their interest.
Next up, a vendor portrait short video
series profiling these same vendors,
based on the oral history videos. These
videos will be released online throughout
the season so the public can get to
know the vendors better (QNM is still
looking for distribution partners).
To preorder The World Eats Here,
visit www.theexperimentpublishing.
com/catalogs/spring-2020/the-worldeats
here.
When released, it will be available
wherever books are sold, as well as at
QNM.
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