Recipe for a Perfect Wife

A powerful, thought-provoking story about the choices that ultimately come to define and liberate two women who lived 60 years apart.

Characters often face difficult choices--and learn how to live with the consequences--in the novels of Karma Brown (TheChoices We Make). In Recipe for a Perfect Wife, she continues this theme, chronicling the lives of two women who lived nearly 60 years apart.

In 2018, 29-year-old Alice Hale and her husband, Nate, move from a "shoebox-size" apartment in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan to a sprawling colonial house in Greenville, a suburban town "less than an hour's train ride from the city and yet an entirely different world." Alice has apprehensions about the retro fixer-upper, but nevertheless makes the adjustment.

While Nate commutes to his city job, Alice, having left her career and friends behind to write a novel, feels a deep loneliness. When she finds a vintage cookbook in the basement and begins whipping up some of the recipes, her anxiety and depression start to lift. She becomes intrigued and wants to find out all she can about Nellie Murdoch, the previous owner of the cookbook and the house.

As Alice learns more about Nellie's life, she faces unexpected crises that force her to rethink choices she's made, secrets she's kept and actions she may need to take in the future. Patriarchal dilemmas abound for both women. Yet, through the wisdom evoked by revelations in Nellie's life story, Alice is suddenly inspired and empowered better to deal with her own challenges.

Strong, well-drawn women anchor Brown's deeply thought-provoking, feminist novel. The spellbinding dual stories complement each other, raising themes of self-discovery, self-preservation and liberation for two women living eras apart.

Recipe for a Perfect Wife (A Novel) by Karma Brown

Dutton, $26.00 Hardcover, 9781524744939, 336 pages

Publication Date: December 31, 2019

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (January 10, 2020), link HERE

To read the longer form of this review as published on Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade (December 6, 2019), link HERE

This Is Sunday Dinner

Lisa Caponigri is masterful Italian chef—and so knowledgeable. This cookbook is a keeper!

An elegantly presented cookbook that offers 52 authentic menus--each with five courses--to create traditional, memorable Italian feasts. 

Lisa Caponigri's life has been spent in the kitchen. Memories of cooking with her Sicilian grandmother and her own children have encouraged Caponigri--an Italian American who has lived in Italy--to inspire others to create similar experiences. In This Is Sunday Dinner, Caponigri presents 52 easy-to-follow, classic menus--each comprised of five courses, including wine suggestions--that pay homage to traditional, five-course Italian Sunday dinners: antipasto, soup, pasta and risotto, entrée or vegetable and dessert. 

Italians make creative use of seasonal ingredients at their peak. Thus, the cookbook is presented in accordance with the four seasons, and each section offers 13 region-specific menus. "Winter in Piemonte" showcases delicious cheeses, like figs stuffed with Gorgonzola and marinated in port wine, as well as creamy risottos, steak and even delicate Apple-Almond Turnovers. "Spring in Campania" features peasant dishes such as "Garbage Pail Spaghetti" that combines nuts with capers, raisins, tomatoes, olives and Pecorino Romano, not to mention Cheese Gattó that marries potatoes with broccoli rabe and smoked mozzarella. Menus replete with fish, eggplant, pastas and desserts--including a rich Cannoli Cake--are highlights of "Summer in Sicily." And "Tuscany in Autumn" showcases the elegant simplicity of menus that offer crostini, a luscious recipe for Ribollita--Tuscan bread and bean soup--as well as hearty recipes for pork and chicken.

Caponigri (Whatever Happened to Sunday Dinner?) believes cookbooks are not just about food, but also about traditions and a lifestyle. This elegant, artfully presented collection is testament to her culinary passion and prowess for all things Italian.

This Is Sunday Dinner: 52 Seasonal Italian Menus by Lisa Caponigri

Sterling Epicure, $29.95 Hardcover, 9781454930174, 336 pages

Publication Date: April 2, 2019

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (May 3, 2019), link HERE

Happy 100th Birthday, Julia Child!

Julia Child was 49 years old when she co-published her first book, the revolutionary Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The 734-page cookbook simplified haute cuisine, making it accessible for the American home kitchen. The book became a bestseller and transformed Julia Child into a culinary and cultural icon.

Over the next four decades, as the French Chef, Child became a much-beloved television personality and she authored and co-authored stockpiles of books. She lived to the ripe old age of 92, defying the perils of indulging in butter, sugar and cream.

Blogger Julie Powell sought inspiration for her life by channeling Julia Child in her own home kitchen in Julie & Julia. The book documents Powell's year-long quest to cook all 524 recipes found in Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

August 15, 2012 marks the centennial of Julia Child's birth, and a host of titles continue to explore Julia's life and reinvigorate her indelible legacy:

Nancy Verde Barr, an executive chef who worked as Julia's Child personal assistant for 18 years, penned Backstage with Julia: My Years with Julia Child, a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of America's most revered chef.

Before she died, Child gave her blessing to author Bob Spitz to write Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child, a comprehensive bio that delves into the years when the independent, rebellious late bloomer finally discovered her true calling in life.

The union of Paul and Julia Child is the cornerstone of Child's posthumously published memoir, My Life in France, and of A Covert Affair: Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS by Jennet Conant, which details the couple's turbulent years as members of the Office of Strategic Services during World War II and how they became caught up in the McCarthy spy hunt of the 1950s.

Julia's Cats: Julia Child's Life in the Company of Cats by Patricia Barey and Therese Burson gives us an unusual montage of the chef via her feline companions. This compact, entertaining read is filled with personal photos and letters that document the role cats played in Julia's life as she moved from Paris to Provence, Cambridge to California.

And for kids ages four and up, Minette's Feast: The Delicious Story of Julia Child and Her Cat by Susanna Reich, illustrated by Amy Bates, dramatizes Julia Child's culinary beginnings through the eyes of her very first feline, Minette.  

Note: This article is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this piece as published on Shelf Awareness for Readers (8/14/12), link HERE

Further Reading: Valentine's Day

 

Valentine's Day... 24 hours dedicated to love, lovers and loving. For some, it's a joy. For others, a dread. They say the key to your true love's heart is through the stomach, so why not take to the kitchen and whip up something scrumptious for--or even with--your amore, surprising the object of your affection today and long after the designated day of romance?

Jacques Pepin can help. In Essential Pepin, he delivers more than 700 recipes, with something for every palate, including his signature roast duck a l'orange and crepes Suzette. Pepin blends the pragmatic with elegant sophistication. The "old chef," as he refers to himself, has come to the conclusion that even seasoned home cooks need the option of seeking some packaged shortcuts to help them prepare dishes from scratch.

And for dessert? Reach for Choclatique by high-octane chef and chocolatier Ed Engoron. This luscious cookbook is complete with useful tips and guides for whipping up decadent chocolate sweets for your sweetheart--even those with special dietary needs. There are 150 recipes for candies, cookies, fudge, soufflé, ganache, even cocktails. Watching your sugar or weight? Then simply cuddle up with the one you love and drool over the mouth-watering photographs of each delectable, chocolate-inspired creation.

But what if you don't cook or would rather not be trapped in your kitchen? You could always splurge and be wined and dined at your favorite upscale restaurant.

Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter by Phoebe Damrosch is part gritty exposé and part witty memoir, detailing the ascendant career of a restaurant captain at a high-end New York City eating establishment. The book is everything you've always wanted to know about the people who take and serve your order, including how a waiter navigates through elaborate menus and moves food from kitchen to table, as well as a waiter's interpretation of the dining foibles of notable clientele, critics and hand-holding couples.

Note: This article is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this piece as published on Shelf Awareness for Readers (2/14/12), link HERE