This year the cookbook author Grace Young is the recipient of the annual Julia Child Award, given by the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts to those who have influenced how America cooks, eats and drinks. Her background and expertise is Cantonese and Chinese home cooking and wok traditions, and over the last two years, with the rise of anti-Asian incidents, Ms. Young has become an activist. She supports Chinatowns across the country, especially New York’s Chinatown in Manhattan. She has also donated some of her family’s rare porcelain from Shanghai and an heirloom wok to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, where a replica of Julia Child’s kitchen is on display. She will receive a $50,000 grant from the foundation at a ceremony in Washington on Oct. 13, and said she plans to use it to support Chinatowns and their traditional restaurants.
