Recipes for Redemption: A Companion Cookbook to A Cup of Redemption

by Carole Bumpus

Overview

Recipes for Redemption: A Companion Cookbook for A Cup of Redemption provides the promised French recipes culled from the pages, the times, and the regional influences found in the historical novel A Cup of Redemption. Told through the voices of the three main characters―Marcelle, Sophie and Kate―the recipes are carefully taught in the way these women learned them: at the knees of their mothers or grandmothers. Whether “cuisine pauvre” (peasant cooking), “war food” from WWII, American fare, or simply a family favorite, each recipe is carefully described and footnoted with interesting, often amusing culinary notes. Flavored with witty repartee and slathered with common sense, this cookbook is filled with heart, soul, humor, and delectable delight.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631528248
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	08/15/2015
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	7.40(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Carole Bumpus, a retired family therapist, is the author of the historical novel A Cup of Redemption, published October 2014 through She Writes Press. She is a state board and branch member of the California Writers Club’s San Francisco/Peninsula Branch and has been published in three CWC short-story anthologies: Fault Zone: Words from the Edge, Fault Zone: Stepping up to the Edge, and Fault Zone: Over the Edge. She continues to write a travel blog taken from excerpts of her interviews with French and Italian families, Savoring the Olde Ways, and her articles on both food and US WWII veterans in France have been published in both the US and in France.

Editorial Reviews

A pastiche of excerpts from Bumpus’s own experiences traveling through France and recipes and advice adapted from some of her favorite French cookbooks . . . An interesting survey of traditional regional French cooking.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Recipes for Redemption is author Carole Bumpus’s cookbook companion to her novel A Cup of Redemption. They say, 'Give the people what they want.' Bumpus has done so, supplying the recipes to the mouthwatering dishes that take center stage in her cross-France family drama.”
—San Francisco Book Review

From the Publisher

2015-07-23
This companion cookbook to Bumpus' novel, A Cup of Redemption (2014), provides recipes for traditional, rural French cooking, region by region.Bumpus offers this slender cookbook as a companion to her multigenerational saga of a French family coming to terms with their history and sense of identity amid years of violence, war, and betrayal. In the novel, Bumpus' characters make it clear they are less interested in haute cuisine than in cuisine pauvre, or traditional peasant cooking, and Bumpus uses regional destinations from the novel to provide a sampling of rustic French culinary delights. The cookbook itself is a kind of pastiche of excerpts from the novel— recipes apparently gleaned from Bumpus' own experiences traveling through France and recipes and advice adapted from some of her favorite French cookbooks, as with her "Omelette aux Champignons et au Fromage," which hails from the Auvergne region. While an omelet or a quiche is a fairly easy accomplishment for a novice cook, several other recipes lack detailed instruction and appear geared toward those with more adventurous pallets and advanced culinary skill sets. As you might expect from rustic French cooking, ingredients tend to include quite a lot of game and offal; and in many ways, what makes this collection so interesting and worthwhile—the emphasis on local, rural, retro cuisine—may also make it best suited for advanced cooks rather than curious beginners. For instance, an Alsatian recipe for "Baekheofe" instructs the reader to simply marinate lamb, beef, and pork in wine overnight with some herbs, garlic, salt, and pepper, then layer meat and potatoes and some vegetables along with goose fat in a terrine, placing a pear and possibly some pigs' feet on top before sealing with pastry. Another recipe for "Boudin Blanc" takes the reader into the realm of charcuterie, advising the cook to push the white sausage mixture into a cleaned intestine.An interesting survey of traditional regional French cooking for intermediate to advanced cooks and fans of Bumpus' novel.

Kirkus Reviews