Dr. Yun Lu: To Feed a Healing Courage
Yun Lu and Roger Newton at the home of Larry and Lucie Nisson, talking about the nonprofit Golden Courage International and a business venture, Dr. Lu's Healing Cuisine. (Photo by the writer.)
At a meeting of the Ann Arbor Public Market Advisory Commission earlier this month, market manager Molly Notarianni reported that she’d received a vendor application from someone who wanted to sell food that incorporated traditional Chinese medicine, including “steamed healing sweet buns” and “sweet lotus rolls.” Because she hadn’t yet approved the application, she didn’t reveal the name of the business, but market commissioners seemed intrigued.
Then at the Sept. 12 Homegrown Festival, The Chronicle encountered a booth for Dr. Lu’s Healing Cuisine, where balls of sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaves were selling briskly. Lucinda Kurtz, who was staffing the booth, confirmed that they had applied for a food cart at the farmers market.
So when The Chronicle arrived at the Eberwhite neighborhood home of Larry and Lucie Nisson in mid-September, it was the third time we’d encountered the venture, but the first time to meet its founder, Yun Lu, and to hear in detail about both the business and a nonprofit he started, Golden Courage International. Accompanying him was Roger Newton, a local entrepreneur best known for helping develop the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor and for later founding the Ann Arbor drug developer Esperion Therapeutics. Newton serves as chairman of the board for Golden Courage, and supports the nonprofit through his Esperance Family Foundation.
About a dozen people gathered in the Nissons’ backyard to hear more about these ventures while sampling tea eggs, sweet bean paste buns and rosebud chrysanthemum tea. [Full Story]