Photo credit: mag3737 via Small Kitchen / CC BY-NC-SA
I was looking for a food memoir to read for Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge and had considered this one. For some reason I chose My Life in France by Julia Child instead (review coming soon), but then my brother’s girlfriend left Lucy Knisley’s book lying around while I was puppysitting so I read it in a few hours.
It was awesome and I loved it!
Knisley was lucky enough to grow up with two gourmands as parents. Her mother worked in the cheese section of at Dean & Deluca in New York while she was pregnant with Knisley and Knisley said she likes the thought of that influencing her from within the womb.
Knisley describes the elaborate dinner parties and Easter celebrations her parents would host and the kinds of food that were served. My childhood doesn’t compare to hers, but we’re both food lovers, we were both introduced to a wide variety of foods from a young age, and neither of us cared what we were eating as long as it tasted good. There’s a particular panel that struck a chord with me where young Knisley is eating something and asks what it is. The reply is “squid” and childhood Knisley keeps right on eating. That echoes a similar story from my own childhood when I discovered fried calamari, which I had somehow mistaken for chicken. My father’s correction did not deter me from finishing off the batch.
Since I had already started reading My Life in France, I did notice one similarity between the two books: less is more. Like Child, Knisley does not recommend adding tons of spices to food. Both authors insist all you really need is salt, pepper, and garlic (although Child said she prefers white pepper to black, which makes me want to compare the two).
At the end of each chapter, Knisley includes a recipe for something scrumptious, including sangria and one of her favorites: sautéed garlic mushrooms. Which I now have to try. Although I borrowed the copy I read, I would highly recommend buying this book for the recipes alone.
When Knisley was still a young adult, her parents got divorced and she moved with her mom to rural New York, which she hated, but in hindsight, she’s grateful for how it made her realize where her food comes from and how that changed her relationship with food and her body. I personally happen to think that’s an important lesson everyone should learn and it really made me want to start my own garden.
My other favorite chapter was her ode to junk food. She knows how unhealthy it is (although I don’t agree that McDonald’s is entirely to blame for our country’s obesity, but that’s another story). She does talk about how delicious it is and how she craves it every once in a while. I can’t say I crave it, but I do have to admit I do find the idea of indulging in a batch of french fries every now and then rather appealing. Reading that particular chapter really made me want to eat a hot dog or something.
What did you guys read this week? Any other great Saturday afternoon reads?
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