Kitchen Yarns: Notes on Life, Love, and Food

Kitchen Yarns: Notes on Life, Love, and Food by Ann Hood

Print Length: 256
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Would you believe me if I told you that I once applied for a PhD in English with a topic on food memoirs? Unfortunately, I was not accepted, but my love for reading about how food impacts different cultures, lives, habits, and cuisines remains undiminished.

TW: Death, Suicide, Family Loss

In this book, Ann Hood reminisces about how she fell in love with food, cooking, and feeding her loved ones. Her anecdotes capture various emotions throughout different phases of her life, including the loss of her young daughter, going through a divorce, falling in love again, spending time with her parents, losing her brother, and more. Her writing is both raw and humorous, and the bonus of this book is that each chapter ends with a tried and tested recipe.

That even in grief, we must take tentative steps back into the world. That even in grief, we must eat. And that when we share that food with others, we are reclaiming those broken bits of our lives, holding them out as if to say, I am still here. Comfort me. As if with each bite, we remember how it is to live.

― Ann Hood

From a simple cheese sandwich (adding mayo does make a difference, thank you!) to making Christmas dinners, Ann has poured all her love, confessions, and wisdom into this unfiltered book. I enjoyed reading it, and most importantly, I am convinced that food memoirs hold a special place in my heart. It is satisfying to see how cooking and eating, which are integral parts of life, can be so deliciously described on pages and woven through stories.

We spend so much of our grief looking for answers to explain what cannot be explained.

― Ann Hood

Buy your copy – Kitchen Yarns: Notes on Life, Love, and Food

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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