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wrentheblurry's review against another edition
I couldn't get into it. My mom bought it for me because I'm a foodie, and she figured I would enjoy a book about someone's 'appetites'. While I did give up early on, what I read severely lacked a solid discussion about food, and instead centered on the author's troubled childhood.
I don't feel comfortable giving a rating to this one, both since I didn't read much of it and because it's not the author's fault that I wasn't in the mood to read about all of her harsh life situations and past problems.
I don't feel comfortable giving a rating to this one, both since I didn't read much of it and because it's not the author's fault that I wasn't in the mood to read about all of her harsh life situations and past problems.
polychrome's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
2.5
Gorgeous writing, but somewhat plodding. It can be hard to write a memoir that is insightful but not too internally focused. Sadly, this book by an otherwise excellent writer is just too concentrated on her thoughts and emotions to be very compelling.
lgmaxwell722's review against another edition
3.0
Kate Christensen takes us through her life using food as a way to do so. Similar to My Berlin Kitchen in that she includes recipes at the end of each section which connect with that moment in her life. This was an easy, entertaining read.
amerika282's review against another edition
4.0
Evocative, wonderful descriptions of food; self-sabotaging narrator.
ktoumajian's review against another edition
3.0
I'm still thinking about this book so perhaps I should give it a 3+/4- ... The concept of this book really spoke to me: a memoir of her life interspersed with exceptional and sometimes mundane but important food experiences. Kate is a foodie, loves everything about food from selecting ingredients, preparing it, sharing it and of course eating it with a good bottle of wine--at times in her life food was about comfort and warmth, at other times only about sustenance and isn't that true for us all? And her love affair with food was an interesting read as well as many of the recipes she weaves into her narrative, but in the end it is the memoir of an artist and haven't we all read that before?
ajreader's review against another edition
3.0
Read my full thoughts over at Read.Write.Repeat.
Family, food, and the author's journey to finding contentedness take center stage in this food-centric memoir. I enjoyed the book, though not nearly as much some of its contemporaries. Still, it fits the genre and the genre is one that I love.
Family, food, and the author's journey to finding contentedness take center stage in this food-centric memoir. I enjoyed the book, though not nearly as much some of its contemporaries. Still, it fits the genre and the genre is one that I love.
balletbookworm's review against another edition
3.0
Far more memoir than foodie book. I haven't read any of Kate Christensen's novels, so I wasn't sure what to expect. It is kind of interesting, how the child of hippies, from a broken home, moved all over lived and grew up into an adult and how she remembers food connected to this life. Not one that I would have normally picked up but it came in one of the Book Rot boxes.
cetoria's review against another edition
4.0
Good writing with lots of food references. Leaves you hungry.
bgprincipessa's review against another edition
2.0
Oof, I was really not a fan of this memoir. I hate to say too much about why I didn't like it, because this is not just a story - these occurrences are from somebody's real life, and I don't want to delve into criticizing a person's lived experiences.
However, I will comment on the way it discusses food, since I read this for the food memoir Read Harder challenge item. In a word, it's unhealthy. Especially in reminiscences from when she was younger, Christensen talks about the relationship between food and body in a way that is extremely alarming, in a way that is akin to pro-ana websites. Food and eating are not triggering subjects for me personally, but I would be concerned about putting this book in someone's hands for who they are. There is never any real addressing of how her younger self treated food and its effect on her self-worth, and that feels irresponsible. In fact, I just barely managed to finish this book, and a lot of that was because I was hoping to see some coming-to-terms with this.
I felt a lot about this as I did about [b:Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail|12262741|Wild From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail|Cheryl Strayed|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1453189881s/12262741.jpg|17237712] and [b:Eat, Pray, Love|19501|Eat, Pray, Love|Elizabeth Gilbert|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1294023455s/19501.jpg|3352398]. The authors tend to flit from place to place and relationship to relationship without explanations of how these things happened, and it makes everything feel so unrealistic and ungrounded. Suddenly someone is spending a year as an au pair in rural France with no experience doing so (and no French), with one sentence explaining how that happened? These are not everyday experiences that can be thrown off this casually. These kinds of things really get to me in memoirs.
However, I will comment on the way it discusses food, since I read this for the food memoir Read Harder challenge item. In a word, it's unhealthy. Especially in reminiscences from when she was younger, Christensen talks about the relationship between food and body in a way that is extremely alarming, in a way that is akin to pro-ana websites. Food and eating are not triggering subjects for me personally, but I would be concerned about putting this book in someone's hands for who they are. There is never any real addressing of how her younger self treated food and its effect on her self-worth, and that feels irresponsible. In fact, I just barely managed to finish this book, and a lot of that was because I was hoping to see some coming-to-terms with this.
I felt a lot about this as I did about [b:Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail|12262741|Wild From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail|Cheryl Strayed|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1453189881s/12262741.jpg|17237712] and [b:Eat, Pray, Love|19501|Eat, Pray, Love|Elizabeth Gilbert|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1294023455s/19501.jpg|3352398]. The authors tend to flit from place to place and relationship to relationship without explanations of how these things happened, and it makes everything feel so unrealistic and ungrounded. Suddenly someone is spending a year as an au pair in rural France with no experience doing so (and no French), with one sentence explaining how that happened? These are not everyday experiences that can be thrown off this casually. These kinds of things really get to me in memoirs.
karieh13's review against another edition
4.0
This was a lovely book that turned out to be far more about the author’s life and experiences than about food. The tastes, sensations, preparations and occasions described by author Kate Christensen are a constant thread throughout the book, but the story of her life proved far more complex and interesting than the menu items.
I found it interesting that the book starts and ends with memories of her father. As close a bond and connection she feels with her mother, the enigma that is her father is the one that most seems to define her. When, as a two year old, she raises her hands to her parents and says, “Comfort me,” - “There they were, my parents, comforting me. The memory is one of the nicest ones I have of my father. There he was, being a father, just for a moment. I had to ask him to, in the spirit of curiosity about a word, but he complied. I have always kept this memory in the mental equivalent of a velvet box at the back of a top shelf in a closet, where rare things are hidden so no one steals of breaks them.”
Christensen’s descriptions of the people in her life, of relationships and the dynamics of family struck the deepest chords. “We all shared the same old jokes. We were a little rusty with Emily, and she with us, but only at first. The habits of being in a family are deep and ingrained. Over the decades, during all of the rifts and schisms and confrontations and silences and offenses and resentments, something had been at work, a strong undertow of love, in all of us.”
There is a great deal of heartache and anger and depression and uncertainty in Christensen’s life, but through that, and through a great deal of joy as well, she comes to know herself well and appreciate the journey. “Everything that has ever happened to me – every meal I’ve ever eaten, every person I’ve loved or hated, every book I’ve read or written, every song I’ve heard or sung – is all still with me, magnetically adhering to my cells.”
And the thread of food, and her relationship with it, is the undercurrent that moves this story along, the constant rhythm that accompanies her journey. She describes it well, tying in the memories and senses that accompany each recipe. “We ate at a homey old Italian place in Williamsburg called Milo’s whose owners, and ancient Italian couple, tottered around serving two-dollar beers and rustic red wine along with mounded plates of cheap, homemade spaghetti with meatballs; we always dared each other to order the half goat’s head, but we never did. I inhaled all this food; I would have rolled around in it if such a thing had been possible.”
“Blue Plate Special” was a wonderfully emotional and evocative book, and inspires me to experience some of the other books written by this talented author.
I found it interesting that the book starts and ends with memories of her father. As close a bond and connection she feels with her mother, the enigma that is her father is the one that most seems to define her. When, as a two year old, she raises her hands to her parents and says, “Comfort me,” - “There they were, my parents, comforting me. The memory is one of the nicest ones I have of my father. There he was, being a father, just for a moment. I had to ask him to, in the spirit of curiosity about a word, but he complied. I have always kept this memory in the mental equivalent of a velvet box at the back of a top shelf in a closet, where rare things are hidden so no one steals of breaks them.”
Christensen’s descriptions of the people in her life, of relationships and the dynamics of family struck the deepest chords. “We all shared the same old jokes. We were a little rusty with Emily, and she with us, but only at first. The habits of being in a family are deep and ingrained. Over the decades, during all of the rifts and schisms and confrontations and silences and offenses and resentments, something had been at work, a strong undertow of love, in all of us.”
There is a great deal of heartache and anger and depression and uncertainty in Christensen’s life, but through that, and through a great deal of joy as well, she comes to know herself well and appreciate the journey. “Everything that has ever happened to me – every meal I’ve ever eaten, every person I’ve loved or hated, every book I’ve read or written, every song I’ve heard or sung – is all still with me, magnetically adhering to my cells.”
And the thread of food, and her relationship with it, is the undercurrent that moves this story along, the constant rhythm that accompanies her journey. She describes it well, tying in the memories and senses that accompany each recipe. “We ate at a homey old Italian place in Williamsburg called Milo’s whose owners, and ancient Italian couple, tottered around serving two-dollar beers and rustic red wine along with mounded plates of cheap, homemade spaghetti with meatballs; we always dared each other to order the half goat’s head, but we never did. I inhaled all this food; I would have rolled around in it if such a thing had been possible.”
“Blue Plate Special” was a wonderfully emotional and evocative book, and inspires me to experience some of the other books written by this talented author.