Licking the Spoon: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Identity

Licking the Spoon: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Identity

by Candace Walsh
Licking the Spoon: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Identity

Licking the Spoon: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Identity

by Candace Walsh

Paperback

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Overview

Recipes and cookbooks, meals and mouthfuls have framed the way Candace Walsh sees the world for as long as she can remember, from her frosting-spackled childhood to her meat-eschewing college years to her post-college phase as a devoted Martha Stewart's Entertaining disciple.

In Licking the Spoon, Walsh tells how, lacking role models in her early life, she turned to cookbook authors real and fictitious (Betty Crocker, Martha Stewart, Mollie Katzen, Daniel Boulud, and more) to learn, unlearn, and redefine her own womanhood. Through the lens of food, Walsh recounts her life’s journey-from unhappy adolescent to straight-identified wife and mother to divorcée in a same-sex relationship—and she throws in some dishy revelations, a-ha moments, take-home tidbits, and mouth-watering recipes for good measure. 

A surprising and rambunctiously liberating tale of cooking and eating, loving and being loved, Licking the Spoon is the story of how—accompanied by pivotal recipes, cookbooks, culinary movements, and guides—one woman learned that you can not only recover but blossom after a comically horrible childhood if you just have the right recipes, a little luck, and an appetite for life's next meal.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781580053914
Publisher: Basic Books
Publication date: 11/13/2012
Pages: 344
Product dimensions: 5.66(w) x 8.08(h) x 0.94(d)

About the Author

Candace Walsh has been a freelance writer for almost fifteen years. She has written for many publications, including Blender, New York Magazine, Mademoiselle, Newsday, Sunset, Travel & Leisure, Mothering, German Vogue, and Food & Wine. She is also the managing editor of the website My Healing Kitchen, a co-founder of Mamalicious magazine, and the editor of two Seal Press anthologies: Dear John, I Love Jane: Women Write About Leaving Men for Women and Ask Me About My Divorce: Women Open Up About Moving On.

Table of Contents

Prologue ix

Chapter 1 How Cuba Married Crete 1

Chapter 2 Mastering the Art 17

Chapter 3 Cradle of Flavor 33

Chapter 4 Water and Wine, Divinity and the Divine 43

Chapter 5 Of Frying Pans and Fire 53

Chapter 6 The Freshman Fifteen 73

Chapter 7 The Enchanted Broccoli Forest 83

Chapter 8 Cooking with Pam 95

Chapter 9 Almost Vegetarian 103

Chapter 10 The Way to a Man's Heart 117

Chapter 11 Jack and Coke 129

Chapter 12 Powdered Sugar and Spice 139

Chapter 13 Canned and Green 143

Chapter 14 The Cake Bible 153

Chapter 15 A Will and a Way 161

Chapter 16 Inside the Gingerbread House 167

Chapter 17 Wedding, Bella 177

Chapter 18 Lune de Miel 187

Chapter 19 Bun in the Oven 193

Chapter 20 Baby Food 203

Chapter 21 Wine and Chile 213

Chapter 22 Down the Hatch, Up the Stump 221

Chapter 23 Home Cooking 233

Chapter 24 Soul Food 243

Chapter 25 The New Basics 255

Chapter 26 First Course 261

Chapter 27 A Moveable Feast 269

Chapter 28 Raw 279

Chapter 29 Carryover Cooking 287

Recipes 295

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

In the spirit of Nora Ephron’s Heartburn and Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking, Candace Walsh uses the story of her passionate relationship to food to frame a powerful and honest account of her life." —Gretchen Rubin, author of the New York Times bestseller The Happiness Project

"Candace Walsh's luscious prose brings this memoir vividly to life. She weaves the comfort of food throughout her brave and ultimately uplifting quest to find her witty wonderful self. And we readers are nourished by coming along on Walsh's journey. Bon appetit." —Cheryl Alters Jamison, four-time James Beard Award-winning author of Smoke & Spice, Tasting New Mexico, The Border Cookbook, and The Big Book of Outdoor Cooking & Entertaining

"Funny, moving, and as irresistible as chocolate cake, Candace Walsh's delicious memoir isn't just a coming-of-age of a remarkable woman by way of the kitchen pantry, but a smart, gorgeously written exploration of the foods—and the people—who really nourish us." —Caroline Leavitt, author of the New York Times bestseller, Pictures of You

"Like Jane Eyre and Heartburn, Licking the Spoon is a book you won't be able to put down and a story you won't soon forget." —Theo Pauline Nestor, author of How to Sleep Alone in a King-Sized Bed

"Engaging in its narrative and as satisfying as the recipes for Ropa Vieja and Chicken Fricassee included, this is truly a memoir from the heart." —Curve Magazine

"The book's brightest points serve as testaments to personal reinvention and healing...when Walsh writes with pride and joy of the day she brought her shiny, new KitchenAid home and recalls tenderly the comfort found in a simple chicken fricassee, those moments shimmer like oil in a hot pan." —Kirkus Reviews

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