After that Central Park discovery, Yang’s interest in foraging became obsessive. She eventually found herself climbing over a ragged chain-link fence to get to a patch of unsullied mugwort on Brooklyn’s East River waterfront. She spent hundreds of dollars on obscure ethnobotany books, and paid hundreds more in parking tickets in my relentless pursuit of certain plants. From the minty bitterness of mugwort to the addictive sulphuric onion fragrance of the Toona sinensis tree, all these plants from Yang’s home country seemed to tell her, “Welcome, old friend. It’s OK that we didn’t meet before, we’re both here now.” They also invited Yang to dig deeper.