I'm a novelist and academic with a passion for food. I’ve always been fascinated by people’s favourite recipes, their signature dishes, or the way they behave around food. (As a novelist, if I’m ever stuck with a story, thinking about food really helps to sharpen my understanding of a particular character or a setting.) To me, food is memory, belonging, connection. Most importantly, in a world that can be so unpredictable and chaotic, cooking food is such a soothing, knowable act. As Nora Ephron puts it: "…if you melt butter and add flour and then hot stock, it will get thick! It’s a sure thing! It’s a sure thing in a world where nothing is sure."
It took me a while to realise the thing that so many of my favourite novels have in common, and that thing is food. My first pick is a classic. While Nora Ephron’s Heartburn focuses on the breakup of a marriage, the protagonist’s relationship with food and with her most-loved recipes is a subplot about how the comforts of good cooking can help us through the toughest times in life. Not only does Heartburn contain wisdom about resilience and agency in the face of life crises, it also reveals the best way to roast almonds, mash potatoes, make key lime pie. This book will change your life, if only because it's a recipe for Linguine Alla Cecca.
If I had to do it over again, I would have made a different kind of pie. The pie I threw at Mark made a terrific mess, but a blueberry pie would have been even better, since it would have permanently ruined his new blazer, the one he bought with Thelma ... I picked up the pie, thanked God for linoleum floor, and threw it' Rachel Samstat is smart, successful, married to a high-flying Washington journalist... and devastated. She has discovered that her husband is having an affair with Thelma Rice, 'a fairly tall person with a neck as long…
This is an enchanting novel about transformation, generosity, small acts of kindness, the complexities of human nature – and chocolate. What I think I love most about this book are the food-related perceptions of the protagonist, Vianne, a new arrival in a small French town. She learns about the people there by observing their relationship with food. Who keeps treats to themselves? Who shares them readily? How can food give us hints about the essence of someone’s soul? She describes one character as the kind of man who breaks a biscuit in two so he can keep the other half for later, which amazingly, tells us everything we need to know.
Even before it was adapted into the Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp, Chocolat entranced readers with its mix of hedonism, whimsy, and, of course, chocolate.
In tiny Lansquenet, where nothing much has changed in a hundred years, beautiful newcomer Vianne Rocher and her exquisite chocolate shop arrive and instantly begin to play havoc with Lenten vows.
Each box of luscious bonbons comes with a free gift: Vianne's uncanny perception of its buyer's private discontents and a clever, caring cure for them. Is she a witch?
Soon the parish no longer cares, as it abandons itself to temptation,…
This is a gem of a book: perceptive, quirky, clear-eyed, and dark. Bender uses the tradition and taste of food, starting with her mother’s lemon cake recipe as a mysterious access point that unlocks the complicated secrets of the heart. It’s clever and stunningly written, deceptively deep but also sensuously thrilling. "I reached to the side of the cake pan, to the least obvious part, and pulled off a small warm spongy chunk of deep gold. Iced it all over with chocolate. Popped the whole thing into my mouth."
_______________________________ On the eve of her ninth birthday, Rose Edelstein bites into her mother's homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother's emotions in the slice. All at once her cheerful, can-do mother tastes of despair and desperation. Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes perilous. Anything can be revealed at any meal.
Rose's gift forces her to confront the truth behind her family's emotions - her mother's sadness, her father's detachment and her brother's clash with the world. But as Rose grows up, she learns that there are some…
Charlie Bucket’s life is grim. "There wasn’t even enough money to buy proper food at all. The only meals they could afford were bread and margarine for breakfast, boiled potatoes and cabbage for lunch and cabbage soup for supper." But all that’s about to change. Once he’s been introduced to everlasting gobstoppers, a river of chocolate, three-course-dinner chewing gum, and lickable wallpaper, there’s no going back. Not to mention the whipple scrumptious fudgemallow delight.
A splendiferous new hardback of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, part of a collection of truly delumptious classic Roald Dahl titles with stylish jackets over surprise printed colour cases, and exquisite endpaper designs.
Mr Willy Wonka is the most extraordinary chocolate maker in the world. And do you know who Charlie is? Charlie Bucket is the hero. The other children in this book are nasty little beasts, called: Augustus Gloop - a great big greedy nincompoop; Veruca Salt - a spoiled brat; Violet Beauregarde - a repulsive little gum-chewer; Mike Teavee - a boy who only watches television. Clutching their…
A beloved classic picture book about a very hungry caterpillar who (spoiler alert) nourishes his way to becoming a beautiful butterfly. It’s a simple but compelling story of transformation, told with elegance and humour - and a total joy for very young children. The very specific list of food (apple, pears, plums, strawberries, oranges, chocolate cake, cherry pie) makes it an immersive close-up experience. From the very start ("In the light of the moon, a little egg sat on a leaf.") its words and pictures are vivid and enchanting. A read-aloud delight full of texture, variety, and colour.
There are so many ways to spend a sunny summer day. Join The Very Hungry Caterpillar and explore everything the season has to offer!
Celebrate summer with The Very Hungry Caterpillar and his friends in this exploration of the season. Young readers can learn all about seasonal sensory experiences, like listening to noisy bugs, feeling the warm sunshine, smelling the yummy scents of a cookout, and so much more!
Oscar Dunleavy, who used to make the world's most perfect apple tarts, is missing, presumed dead. No one seems too surprised, except for Meg, his best friend, and his little brother Stevie. Surrounded by grief and confusion, Meg and Stevie are determined to find out what happened to Oscar, and together they learn about loyalty and friendship, the power of never giving up hope and the magic of perfectly baked, homemade apple tarts.
I’m an OB/GYN, passionate about adventuring beyond what’s expected. This has led me to pivot multiple times in my career, now focusing on writing. I’ve written a play, The Post-Roe Monologues, to elevate women’s stories. I cherish the curiosity that drives outer and inner exploration, and I love memoirs that skillfully weave the two. The books on this list feature extraordinary women who took risks, left comfort and safety, and battled vulnerability to step into the unknown. These authors moved beyond the stories they’d believed about themselves–or that others told about them. They invite you to think about living fuller and bigger lives.
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
The team attempts a new route up the East Face without the use of supplemental oxygen, Sherpa support, or chance for rescue. When three climbers disappear during their summit attempt, Zieman reaches the knife edge of her limits and digs deeply to fight for the climbers’ lives and to find her voice.
The plan was outrageous: A small team of four climbers would attempt a new route on the East Face of Mt. Everest, considered the most remote and dangerous side of the mountain, which had only been successfully climbed once before. Unlike the first large team, Mimi Zieman and her team would climb without using supplemental oxygen or porter support. While the unpredictable weather and high altitude of 29,035 feet make climbing Everest perilous in any condition, attempting a new route, with no idea of what obstacles lay ahead, was especially audacious. Team members were expected to push themselves to their…
