

Created by Matt Zoller Seitz
Directed by Judith Carter
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
Haruki Murakami
Photo by Justin Campbell on Unsplash
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An exciting and unexpected collection of 100 recipes that re-examines Chinese American food
A DELISH BEST COOKBOOK OF THE YEARJon Kung grew up as a “third-culture” kid: Born in Los Angeles, raised in Hong Kong and Toronto, and now living in Detroit, Jon learned to embrace his diasporic identity in the kitchen after pivoting his career from law school graduate to being a cook. When the pandemic shut down his immensely popular popup, he turned to social media—not just as a means of creative expression, but as a way to teach and inspire.
Over time, Jon discovered that expressing himself through food not only reflected his complicated identities, it affirmed them. From dumplings to the most decadent curried mac and cheese, Jon inspires millions through his creative recipes and content.
In Kung Food, he breaks the boundaries of flavors in chapters such as:
• Snacky Snacks, Bites, and Cravings (Sesame Shrimp Toast, Vegan Fried Chicken Sandwich)
• Noodles & Dumplings (Ginger Scallion Noodles, Buffalo Chicken Rangoon, Lamb Curry Dumplings)
• Rice & Congee (“Clay Pot” Rice Tahdig, Mushroom Fried Rice)
• Stir Fries (Szechuan Paneer, Faygo Orange Chicken)
• Kung Foo Means “with Effort” (Hong Kong Chicken and Waffles, Dan Dan Lasagna)
Through stunning, playful, and high-energy photos and Jon’s wit and humility, he brings forward a collection of recipes that blend cultural traditions, ingredients, and flavors with his ultimate goal of redefining what Chinese American food can be.
REVIEWS
“In their debut book, chef Jon Kung explores the notion of third-culture cuisine—the cooking that blends influences from multiple cultures. The product, which has captivated their followers on social media, are inventive recipes like jerk chow mein and chicken tikka masala rangoon that meld together unexpected flavors and ingredients and push the boundary of fusion cooking.”—Forbes,
“Best Fall Cookbooks”
“Jon Kung is more than just a popular Tik Tok chef, and his debut cookbook Kung Food is proof of that. An exploration of third-culture cooking through a Chinese American lens, Kung’s book is clever, sharp, and filled with a list of recipes that throws constraints like ‘authenticity’ and ‘tradition’ out the window.”—Food & Wine,
“Best Fall Cookbooks”
“From the Dan Dan Lasagna to the Mapo Paneer, the recipes in Kung Food are so vibrant and bursting with flavor that you’ll want to scrape your plates clean—but it’s Jon’s wonderful writing that gives new meaning to what it means to be Chinese American.”
—Andy Baraghani, author of The Cook You Want to Be
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jon Kung is a self-taught cook who was known for his popups and intricate dinners served out of his secret kitchen Kung Food Market/Studio He is now a full-time content creator on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. Jon has been featured in USA Today, CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Interview magazine and lives in Detroit with his partner Jon (yes, he knows) and their dog, Mochi.
MZS.Press is the online arts bookstore founded by author, critic, and filmmaker Matt Zoller Seitz and Directed by Judith Carter. It offers new, used, signed, collectible, and rare books on film, TV, music, photography, and the visual arts. The store was launched in 2019 on a different platform and has expanded to incorporate arts books published by MZSPress's private imprint: titles currently include Seitz's The Deadwood Bible: A Lie Agreed Upon and Dreams of Deadwood, about the HBO Western, and Walter Chaw's A Walter Hill Film.
Our deepest wish is to promote, encourage, and distribute work by small presses, academic presses, and individuals. Extraordinary work tends to get swallowed up on giant platforms like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The titles featured here are personally selected by a group of curators and advisors, including Seitz and an array of critics, artists, journalists, educators, publishers, and arts mavens who are known for their ability to suss out what Seitz's jazz musician dad liked to call "the good sh*t."
In Honor of the greatest auteur of our time, Judith is using one of her favorite quotes by him.
"Every day, once a day, give yourself a present"
David Lynch (January 20, 1946-January 15, 2025)
Matt Zoller Seitz
Critic, Author, Filmmaker, MZS Press Creator
Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large and film critic of RogerEbert.com; Features Writer for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, Contributing Writer for D Magazine and Texas Highways as well as finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism. His writing on film and TV has appeared in Sight and Sound, The New York Times, Salon.com, The New Republic and Rolling Stone. Seitz is the founder and original editor of the influential film blog The House Next Door, now a part of Slant Magazine.
Seitz has written, narrated, edited or produced over a hundred hours’ worth of video essays about cinema history and style for The Museum of the Moving Image, Salon.com and Vulture, among other outlets such as Texas Highways and AARP. His five-part 2009 video essay Wes Anderson: The Substance of Style was spun off into the hardcover book The Wes Anderson Collection. This book and its follow-up, The Wes Anderson Collection: Grand Budapest Hotel were New York Times bestsellers.
Other Seitz books include the New York Times bestsellers The Sopranos Sessions and Mad Men Carousel; TV (The Book), The Deadwood Bible: A Lie Agreed Upon, The Wes Anderson Collection: The French Dispatch and the new The Wes Anderson Collection: Asteroid City. He is also an interviewer, moderator, and film programmer who has curated and hosted film and TV presentations for the Museum of the Moving Image, IFC Center, San Francisco's Roxie Cinema, and other venues. In October 2024 he brought the legendary filmmaker Oliver Stone back to Dallas for a historic return to the city and the Texas Theatre, considered the biggest film event of Dallas in 2024 by Dallas Observer!
Judith Carter was in the Upscale and Luxury Hospitality Industry for most of her life. In 2004 she had a beautiful baby boy with Special Needs and put the pause on her career until 2017 to dedicate herself to him and then others, assisting and volunteering as a legal advocate ensuring the best medical care, evaluations and educations for Special Needs children and their families.
Matt and Judith were family friends for over 20 years. She was there with her family in support when his wife Jen passed away suddenly in 2006. Then just 6 weeks later while Matt was in Dallas; he and his Father, Dave, and Step-Mother, Genie, were there as support, when Judith was alone and her son received the first of many diagnoses that changed the trajectory of their lives. So it made sense in the turbulent year of 2020, Matt asked Judith to take over running the online store that has become MZS.press. The rest as they say is, "Their"-story.