Overview
Many of our earliest memories center around food and eating. Family stories, histories of relationships and the negotiations of the heart often revolve around rituals of breaking bread. In this eclectic collection, there is a diverse group of voices, each exploring how food influences and shapes our lives. From backyard cocktail parties to flirting with a stranger in the vegetable aisle at the grocery store, from acquaintances sharing coffee and casual conversation at a diner’s counter to lovers mixing the tastes of the mouth with the pleasures of the body, each piece brings a fresh look at the central role food plays in the rhythm of our days.
This superb anthology reminds us of what we’ve known all along: that both kitchen and bookshelf are for the feeding of body and spirit.
Synopsis
Many of our earliest memories center around food and eating. Family stories, histories of relationships and the negotiations of the heart often revolve around rituals of breaking bread. In this eclectic collection, there is a diverse group of voices, each exploring how food influences and shapes our lives. From backyard cocktail parties to flirting with a stranger in the vegetable aisle at the grocery store, from acquaintances sharing coffee and casual conversation at a diner s counter to lovers mixing the tastes of the mouth with the pleasures of the body, each piece brings a fresh look at the central role food plays in the rhythm of our days.
This superb anthology reminds us of what we ve known all along: that both kitchen and bookshelf are for the feeding of body and spirit.
Library Journal
A former caterer who is currently completing her M.F.A. in Creative Writing at Florida International University, Broussard combines her two passions literature and cooking to compile this anthology of food related essays, stories, and poems. Delving deep into the complexity of the human spirit, each of the 36 contributors among them, John Dufresne, Dan Wakefield, Les Standiford, and Lynne Barrett contemplates how food affects his or her life in settings as common as the grocery store or a backyard cookout. Two outstanding stories use food as the central metaphor for grief. In Nina Romano s Dean-O, a long-married couple s shared memories of fine dinning sustain them through a serious breach of trust in their marriage, while in Lynne Barrett s Gift Wrap, three generations of a family work out their grief over the loss of the family matriarch while baking Lebkuchen. The pieces, some original to this work, are organized thematically and even include favorite recipes. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the book will be donated to South Florida s Daily Bread Food Bank. For large collections of cookbooks and literary essays.—Pam Kingsbury
Editorials
Betty Fussell
For the compulsive snacker, the perfect diet--a year's supply of delicious munchies, salted with wit, sugared with love, crisped with intelligence--and totally calorie free. Eat and grow thin.—author of My Kitchen Wars, I Hear America Cooking, Home Bistro, Masters of American Cookery, and The Story of Corn
Library Journal
A former caterer who is currently completing her M.F.A. in Creative Writing at Florida International University, Broussard combines her two passions—literature and cooking—to compile this anthology of food related essays, stories, and poems. Delving deep into the complexity of the human spirit, each of the 36 contributors—among them, John Dufresne, Dan Wakefield, Les Standiford, and Lynne Barrett—contemplates how food affects his or her life in settings as common as the grocery store or a backyard cookout. Two outstanding stories use food as the central metaphor for grief. In Nina Romano’s “Dean-O,” a long-married couple’s shared memories of fine dinning sustain them through a serious breach of trust in their marriage, while in Lynne Barrett’s “Gift Wrap,” three generations of a family work out their grief over the loss of the family matriarch while baking Lebkuchen. The pieces, some original to this work, are organized thematically and even include favorite recipes. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the book will be donated to South Florida’s Daily Bread Food Bank. For large collections of cookbooks and literary essays.—Pam KingsburyMyra Chanin
Wow! What a terrific selection of food related essays, stories and poems. Something for everyone, and even lots for a fussbudget like me. I had no idea there was so much culture in South Florida. Well, it looks like I was wrong once again and Tracey Broussard was right.—author of Mother Wonderful's Profusely Illustrated Guide to the Proper Preparation of Chicken Soup and Mother Wonderful's Cheesecakes and Other Goodies