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Tag Archives: foodie fiction
Sample Saturday – foodie-lit picks
Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye. Continue reading
Mãn by Kim Thúy
Mãn by Kim Thúy is a slip of a novel but looks can be deceptive – it’s a rich, melancholy tale about belonging.
Mãn has three mothers: the one who gives birth to her in wartime, the nun who plucks her from a vegetable garden, and her beloved Maman, who scarifies all that she can for her daughter.
‘In the distance, in the warm light, she saw me, and I became her daughter. She gave me a second birth by bringing me up in a big city, an anonymous elsewhere, behind a schoolyard, surrounded by children who envied me for having a mother who taught school and sold iced bananas.’ Continue reading
Antarctica on a Plate by Alexa Thomson
If you’re looking for a memoir about exploring, ice and braving the extremities of Antarctica, then Alexa Thomson’s Antarctica on a Plate is not for you. Yes, there’s ice but the focus is on the challenge of cooking large quantities of food on a small stove, and the fact that in Antarctica you never run out of freezer space. Continue reading
Bookish (and not so bookish) Thoughts
01. Last week I spotted my first Asperitas cloud. It’s rare, so capturing it meant my position on the international cloud-spotters chart improved significantly. Continue reading
White Truffles in Winter by N. M. Kelby
I’ve just finished a story about a chef who won his wife in a pool game; worked in the finest hotels in the world; saved hundreds of people from a fire; cooked for kings and queens; had affairs with high-profile women; fought in wars; lived apart from his wife for decades but spent his last months with her; coined a word (deliciousness/ umami); and revolutionised the way kitchens were set up and run.
It may sound like fiction but it’s all part of the life of French chef, Auguste Escoffier. It’s remarkable stuff. Yet with so much to work with, why did I find N. M. Kelby’s novel, White Truffles in Winter, bland? Continue reading
How to Party With an Infant by Kaui Hart Hemmings
Slicker, sharper and less sentimental than other books I’ve read by Kaui Hart Hemmings, her latest, How to Party With an Infant, makes for entertaining reading.
Recipe blogger, Mele Bart, is single mum to two-year-old Ellie. When she was pregnant, Mele’s boyfriend, Bobby, announced his engagement – to another woman (an artisan cheese-maker from the Napa valley). Bobby wants Ellie to be the flower-girl in his wedding and Mele reluctantly agrees.
To take her mind off the upcoming nuptials, Mele enters a recipe competition run by the San Francisco Mother’s Club. She uses cooking as therapy – for both herself and her own circle of ‘mummy friends’. As her friend Annie says, “Mele’s going to take your despair and turn it into cupcakes.”
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A Cook’s Tour by Anthony Bourdain
When it comes to writing about food, Anthony Bourdain pretty much redefined the genre in 2000 with Kitchen Confidential. His rock’n’roll tales from the kitchen were gripping and yet wonderfully repulsive. I’m not sure how he fills his days now, whether it’s behind a grill or a keyboard, but a number of books and documentaries followed Confidential, including my most recent read, A Cook’s Tour. Continue reading
Bookish (and not so bookish) Thoughts
01. Girl’s weekend away last week. Went to Point Lonsdale and it was glorious. Continue reading
Memoir fans – remember to put these books on your reading list
It’s Top Ten Tuesday time and the topic this week is ‘Ten Books Every X Should Read’. In my case, the X is for memoir fans.
The first five are those type of memoirs that are so horrifying that you have to keep checking whether they are not, in actual fact, fiction. The next bunch are not misery-memoirs at all – quite the opposite – they made me laugh. Continue reading