Fly By Jing’s chili crisp and Zhong dumpling sauces are mainstays in my fridge because they are the perfect finish to so many dishes.

So when founder Jing Gao debuted her cookbook, “The Book of Sichuan Chili Crisp” (Ten Speed Press),” I couldn’t wait to leaf through it.

The book, of which I received a review copy, takes its title from the delicious “fly” (hole-in-the-wall) street-food eateries that Gao and her parents would grab a bite to eat at in Chengdu, the capital of China’s Sichuan region.

Her father, a nuclear physics professor with a Chinese visa, moved the family around annually for his job. Sichuan food became the one constant in Gao’s life. And it became her calling after she left the corporate business world to start Baoism, her own restaurant in Shanghai that operated for two years. All the while, she kept refining the condiments that were her cooking touchstones.

After traveling to a natural foods trade show in California, and discovering the dearth of Asian food brands that existed, she launched Fly by Jing in 2018 through a Kickstarter campaign. Today, these popular products are sold in Whole Foods, Target, and Costco.

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