I came across this book on a list of recommendations by Off the Shelf, as a book for "the bookworm who loves cooking".
That sounded right up my alley. I love books, and not only do I love eating food, but I love cooking. I was sold.
From the moment I began the book (yesterday), the title described more than the author's hunger for good food. There's a search for meaning in the meals she read about it books from her childhood, for finding truth in those small moments of memory. Nicoletti then takes that meal from the pages, or her interpretation of it, and transforms it into an actual recipe for the reader-chef to create on their own.
I loved Nicoletti's honesty. She laid her memories out, letting the reader know some pretty intimate moments she'd shared with family and friends. They're the kinds of memories that never really come up on their own, but with the right trigger can instantly start replaying in our minds.
Reading of her bookish childhood made me recall my own, though of a different strain than Nicoletti's. Hers was a family affair, with sisters and parents and grandparents and extended family all encouraging this habit and giving her books to read just at the right time. Mine felt like a struggle to keep it alive. My parents encouraged me well enough, especially regarding maintaining a strong intellect and curiousity that reading provides. But they couldn't buy me all the books I wanted, didn't have the ones from their own childhood to pass down. The school library, when we were allowed to visit, left me wanting (we had assigned times once a month, maybe.)
I managed to find enough to around to read: Mrs. Janes's collection in 3rd grade was where I read all the Sweet Valley Jr. High books she had; I saved the extra change from lunches for when we'd get that beautiful Scholastic order form, buying the others I'd circled that my parents said were too much; the old and slowly obseleting storylines of Encylopedia Brown in the local library. It was in that last place, in our town's teeny library that I read those tween-centered puzzlers, ones that followed in the same vein as Nancy and the Hardys, but wanted you to solve it. One of these series printed the answers backwards and/or upside down, to be read in front of a mirror with the book flipped if need be. These books taught me two things--how to think and question all the details that lay bare, and how to read that text without flipping or a mirror. The latter is a great trick for middle school students.
I am digressing though, which to segue back to the review, is something that does show up in Nicoletti's book in just the right amount. Back and forth in time with her is her natural storytelling mode, one I obviously can relate to. But in a much better way than I do, she makes sure the reader is grounded in the purpose of this entry--why this book particularly inspired her to re-create or imagine a recipe.
Speaking of, those recipes! They sound divine! I personally can't wait to try those Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies (inspired by If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, obviously). The selections are not all like that example, a central obvious choice. Her particular humor shows through her recipe paired with Lord of the Flies, Porchetta di Testa. Or "Hansel and Gretel"'s Gingerbread Cake with Blood Orange Syrup.
Another way Nicoletti's particular voice came through that resonated with me was when she included books that she didn't necessarily like but recognized their place in her life.
Some advice for all parents out there: if you have a kid who already overwrought and anxious, Astrid's Lundgren's Pippi Longstocking is not the book you should read to her. Ande [her sister], ever the party girl, was thrilled by the book, laughing aloud and kicking her feet at Pippi's brazenness and spontaneity, but I was horrified. Her unpredictability bewildered me — her life was an unstructured nightmare, a circus! And I hated circuses. Even her appearance terrified me — those untamed flaming red pigtails, that cavernous gap in her garish smile...Pippi's chaotic existence had me stressed.
I love that. Pippi gains no ground in winning Nicoletti's over, but the book was read at a paticularly rough childhood moment. It's one where I felt a kinship with Nicoletti when she shares the memory of her making pancakes with her mother and both of them agreeing on Pippi and her rambunctiousness being too much to bear. Books have a particular poigancy when they also help us connect to the people standing next to us.
To divuge another personal anecdote: my mom loves yard sales. Adores them. When I was four, give or take, we were looking around, and I found a book bound in burlap brown, two boys silouhetted on front below the title pressing the material, The Tower Treasure. Fans will recongize that this is the first entry in the decades long Hardy Boys series, but at the time, I just thought that it looked like it might be good. I knew how to read at the time, and after persuring the first few pages, I knew I wanted it. I brought it to my mom, now talking with the woman selling these items. I still have an imprint of this woman's face, looking down me with a emotion I can only describe as well-meaning condenscension. She then said that might be too big a book for me. Momma, ever the opportunist when it comes to being right, opened the book to the first page and told me to read the first paragraph aloud. So I did. The woman was so impressed that I could read it at my age said we could have the book for free. Looking back, part of me wonders if she just thought I was younger than I was (I have always looked younger than I am). But in this scene from my past, I look back with fondness at Momma's simple response, a thread I see throughout my life and the lives of my brother and sister--Momma and Daddy's pride in all that we three had within our heads and motivation to not let others' expectations dampen our goals.
Because of the way it made me think back on my own reading youth and whetted my appetite both for food and for reading, this book is one I recommend not only to the cooking bookworms like myself, but to all with fond memories of the books they read in the back of their heads.
(P.S. I don't agree with her view of Holden Caulfield, but I love her inclusion of Middlesex and The Little Friend, two of my favorite books.)
