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A review by thebooksatchel
Small Fires: An Epic in the Kitchen by Rebecca May Johnson
reflective
An enjoyable book! About how we diminish the 'work' that goes into cooking in the name of 'love'. About recipes—what they bring to the table, what they don't, how we follow a recipe (to the dot, intuition, no measurement cooking etc. I def did not know about the 'no-recipe recipe book by New york Times editor Sam Sifton). Describing each cooking session as a performance. About Nigella Lawson's use of possessives in the way she describes her cooking and food. About MFK Fischer's thoughts on food. About navigating life through different hairstyles and food—the slow transformation.
"Nigella's use of possessive pronouns unsettles me too. <i>My</i> chocolate cake, <i>my>/i> quick paste, <i>my</i> upmarket mushy peas. They are all declared delicious...The possessive pronouns come across as boastful, greedy, even immodest."
"Spattering is not mentioned in the recipe. The text does not anticipate the liveliness of the process it describes, which spatters wildly"
<i>Thanks to the publisher for a copy of the book</i>
"Can I only appreciate cooking through the imagination of the other...I have been dependent on living through the appetites and desires of others. Alone I am so lost"
"Nigella's use of possessive pronouns unsettles me too. <i>My</i> chocolate cake, <i>my>/i> quick paste, <i>my</i> upmarket mushy peas. They are all declared delicious...The possessive pronouns come across as boastful, greedy, even immodest."
"Spattering is not mentioned in the recipe. The text does not anticipate the liveliness of the process it describes, which spatters wildly"
<i>Thanks to the publisher for a copy of the book</i>
"Can I only appreciate cooking through the imagination of the other...I have been dependent on living through the appetites and desires of others. Alone I am so lost"