Interviews with 21 bestselling contemporary authors about food, memory, and their experiments in the kitchen.

Description

Food is a powerful force in our memories. It reminds us of our childhoods, our heritages, our loved ones. We share meals with those we care about. They cook us dinner, they gather us around the table, they dance in the kitchen while cleaning up after a meal. The kitchen, the dining room, a picnic blanket—these are the places where life happens around a good meal. An argument, a proposal, a moment shared between sisters. Food has always been and will always be, a central tenet of who we are as people.

These twenty-one authors share with us their early memories, their disasters, their significant moments which took place behind stoves, around a table, while washing dishes at the sink. These are the memories that shape who we are and who we will be, the recipes we inherited and those we will pass on. Whether laugh-out-loud hilarious, deeply nostalgic, or crushingly tragic, the moments that these writers share are all poignant in their own ways, and invoke in the reader their own tender memories.

Lisa See talks about cooking with her grandfather in Los Angeles' Chinatown and shares his Curried Tomato Beef recipe. Azar Nafisi, born and raised in Tehran, remembers cooking in the backyard over slow fires, and shares her popular cold Cucumber Yogurt soup recipe. And Katherine Taylor puzzles over what cocktail she would possibly make were she to run out of gin, but shares her carefully cultivated Limey Gin & Tonic recipe as well.

As M.F.K. Fisher wrote, "Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly."

And yet, cooking can be as light as it is heavy. So as Julia Child said, "Bon Appetit!"

This project was completed as part of the DailyLit Externship Program.

Table of Contents

Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry

Annie Barrows, author of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Roxana Robinson, author of Cost

Julia Glass, author of I See You Everywhere and Three Junes

Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran and Things I've Been Silent About

Elizabeth Strout, author of Olive Kitteridge

Anita Diamant, author of The Red Tent and Day After Night

Lisa See, author of Shanghai Girls

Katherine Taylor, author of Rules for Saying Goodbye

Jonathan Ames, author of The Double Life is Twice as Good

Courtney Sullivan, author of Commencement

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of Half of a Yellow Sun and The Thing Around My Neck

Chris Cleave, author of Little Bee

Molly Wizenberg, author of A Homemade Life

Tatiana de Rosnay, author of Sarah's Key

Rachel Kushner, author of Telex from Cuba

Emily St. John Mandel, author of Last Night in Montreal

Erica Jong, author of Fear of Flying and Love Comes First

Diane Ackerman, author of The Zookeeper's Wife

Jason Goodwin, author of The Bellini Card

Janet Evanovich, author of the Stephanie Plum series

Extended Copyright Information

Copyright 2009 by Megan Halpern. All rights reserved.

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About the Author

Born in the Netherlands but raised in the Northeast, Megan Halpern is currently a writer and literary publicist based in Brooklyn, NY.  She is a graduate of New York University, and is currently the publicity force behind Melville House, an independent book publisher in the city.  When she is not working, writing, or cooking up a storm, Megan can be found exploring Boerum Hill, the neighborhood she holds so dear, accidentally singing along out loud to her iPod. You can keep up with her at megalie.wordpress.com or follow her on twitter @megalie.

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Opening Lines (Experimental)

*Audrey Niffenegger* is the author of the _New York Times_bestseller _The Time Traveler's Wife_, which was recently made into a movie starring Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana. Her next novel, _Her Fearful Symmetry_, will be available from Scribner this fall. After letting her know that of course ...

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Copyright

Copyright 2009 by Megan Halpern.

All Rights Reserved.

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