Then, I read Aimee Bender’s tale, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, wherein Rose, on her ninth birthday, discovers that she can taste her mother’s emotions in the lemon-chocolate birthday cake. Food then becomes an obstacle for Rose as she navigates through life. Thrown into this mix is her brother, Frank, who must also confront his unusual gift. This is a fascinating look into a disintegrating family. Yet it is uplifting when Rose finally finds a way to confront and put her gift to use.  (There are no recipes in this book.)

After these books, I needed some light reading for a plane ride so I picked up The Secret of Everything by Barbara O’Neal. Tessa, an outdoor adventure leader, is recovering from an accident that took the life of a young woman for whom Tessa was responsible. Tessa’s been recuperating at her hippie father’s home, but she decides to investigate the (fictional) town of Las Ladronas, New Mexico, as a possible new site for an adventure tour. While exploring the area, she experiences déjà vu and memories are starting to surface. She also, of course, finds love – a widower with three young girls. The plot was a bit contrived, but O’Neal’s characters are appealing people with interesting lives and back stories. Yes, there are recipes in this book (most of them breakfast specialties). And there are also some delightful dogs in this story, too.

I also read Jen Lancaster’s latest laugh fest, My Fair Lazy. Although she covered her struggle with food and dieting in Such a Pretty Fat, in My Fair Lazy Lancaster attempts to bring culture into her life, which she labels “Jenaissance.” She and her very patient husband, Fletch, take several food and wine appreciation classes and visit a restaurant specializing in molecular gastronomy, where food is created using blowtorches and liquid nitrogen, rather than ovens and flame. Some of the dishes she describes made my mouth water. 

After finishing these books and raiding the fridge, I set out to redeem myself by reading The Amazing Adventures of DietGirl by Shauna Reid.  This inspiring and humorous story of the author’s experience of going from a very overweight young woman to a healthy slim one seemed to happily break the food spell. 

Now I’m looking for something else to read. Perhaps a mystery, but preferably one without mention of butter burgers, frozen custard or “TastyKakes.” I believe I’ve found it in the gripping Still Missing. Please excuse me but I’ve got to get back to reading this “can’t put down” book.

Suzanne

If pressed for an answer to that age-old conundrum “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I most likely would have replied, “A psychologist!” Ah, the smell of naugahyde, the rustic retreats with disgruntled couples, the quality time on crumbling ledges with jumpers-to-be. That was the life for me. Of course I didn’t know exactly what a psychologist did, but it had to be more fulfilling than weighing boxes of cookies (and pirate didn’t seem to be an in-vogue career choice at that time).

Pete Jordan had a different vision. It may not have been born in his early youth, but as middle age rapidly approached he began to find a passion for that lowliest of occupations (ranked #735 out of 740 jobs in desirability), dishwashing. This widely-avoided career offered the benefits of free food, an abundance of job openings and ease of termination (“I quit, goodbye!”). Thus began a 12 year odyssey filled with dishwashing, travel (Dishwasher Pete decided to wash dishes in each of the 50 states), and interesting people. Along the way Jordan wrote an entertaining and funny memoir, Dishwasher, that will make you yearn for suds and a dish towel.

While cookie weighing and dish washing might not entice most tykes, many would give their left canine tooth to work in a candy factory. In Candyfreak, Steve Almond takes the reader on a journey through the dark and sticky bits of the candy world. As he journeys to small-market companies, Almond’s readers can vicariously taste exotic candies fresh off of the manufacturing line, learn a few tidbits about the candy making process, and witness the potential death throes of small-time candy. Almond, with his fanatical passion for candy, creates a narrative that is comical as well as informative.

If you’d like to investigate other occupations through movies you might look into Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (and discover the hidden excitement of chartered accountancy), Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (maniacal factory owner) and Talladega Nights (rich race car driver).

Of course, working at a library ain’t half bad.

Ron

Nancy Pearl describes magical realism as “a style of writing that allows authors to look at our own world through the lens of another world, an imagined yet very familiar one in which past, present, and future are often intertwined.”

Some of the best-known writers of magical realism are Isabel Allende, Jorge Luis Borges, and Gabriel García Márquez. 

A few of my all-time favorites include Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits, Aphrodite, and My Invented Country, as well as Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel.

The Lady, the Chef, and the Courtesan by Marisol and Hot House Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire by Margot Berwin are a few you may have missed.

And, of course, Pedro Almodóvar movies are a wonderful accompaniment to these books, especially Volver.

Kara

Muriel Barbery‘s Gourmet Rhapsody was just that book for me. It’s the story of ‘the world’s greatest food critic’ who is about to die and must decide his final meal.

What I found so wonderful about this book, however, was not so much the storyline but its poetic language and magical characters. Even with these delightful underpinnings, it is also the kind of book (my favorite kind) that is fabulously political and prophetic at hidden turns — reminiscent of such literary pleasures as Pascal Mercier’s Night Train to Lisbon and the visual delight of Babette’s Feast. 

Barbery fills the book with exquisite sentences, such as, “That is sashimi: a fragment of the cosmos within reach of one’s heart, but, alas, light years from the fragrance or taste that is fleeing my wisdom, or is it my inhumanity…”

Exactly. If those words touch the depths of you like they did me, you will love this book.

Kara