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Title details for How to Share an Egg by Bonny Reichert - Available

How to Share an Egg

A True Story of Hunger, Love, and Plenty

by Bonny Reichert
ebook
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An “absolutely transformative” (People) culinary memoir about the relationship between food and family—sustenance and survival—from a chef, award-winning journalist, and daughter of a Holocaust survivor.
“Beautifully written, heartbreaking and hopeful.”—Ruth Reichl, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Novel
When you’re raised by someone who once survived on potato peels and coffee grounds, you develop a pretty healthy respect for food.
Bonny Reichert avoided everything to do with the Holocaust until she found herself, in midlife, suddenly typing those words into an article she was writing. The journalist had grown up hearing stories about her father’s near-starvation and ultimate survival in Auschwitz-Birkenau, but she never imagined she would be able to face this epic legacy head-on.
Then a chance encounter with a perfect bowl of borscht in Warsaw set Bonny on a journey to unearth her culinary lineage, and she began to dig for the roots of her food obsession, dish by dish. Stepping into the kitchen to connect her past with her future, the author recounts the defining moments of her life in a poignant tale of scarcity and plenty: her colorful childhood in the restaurant business, the crumbling of her first marriage and the intensity of young motherhood, her decision to become a chef, and that life-altering visit to Poland. Whether it’s the flaky potato knishes and molasses porridge bread she learned to bake at her baba Sarah’s elbow, the creamy vichyssoise she taught herself to cook in her tiny student apartment, or the brown butter eggs her father, now 93, still scrambles for her whenever she needs comfort, cuisine is both an anchor and an identity; a source of joy and a signifier of survival.
How to Share an Egg is a journey of deep flavors and surprising contrasts. By turns sweet, salty, sour, and bitter, this is one woman’s search to find her voice as a writer, chef, mother, and daughter. Do the tiny dramas of her own life matter in comparison to everything her father has seen and done? This moving exploration of heritage, inheritance, and self-discovery sets out to find the answer.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 21, 2025

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780593599174

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780593599174
      • File size: 3521 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      August 1, 2024

      Winner of the Dave Greber Book Award for social justice writing, Reichert pens a culinary memoir about her childhood, early adulthood, and midlife as she reflects on her father's survival of the Holocaust, her family's foodways, and all that she has come to know about food, history, and inheritance. Prepub Alert.

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from November 11, 2024
      Journalist and chef Reichert debuts with a mesmerizing memoir about grappling with depression and growing up as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. The youngest child in a tranquil Edmonton household, Reichert spent blissful afternoons cooking with her grandmother, accompanying her father to the restaurants he owned, and testing out her own recipes. “Food was everything,” Reichert writes. “I knew it was delicious and I knew it was precious.” The flip side of Reichert’s sunny upbringing, however, was an unrelenting pressure to be happy, and a deep sense of shame whenever she struggled to contain her fear or sadness: “Life was painted with almost too much color in an effort to brighten what had come before.” After eating borscht on a trip to Warsaw as an adult, Reichert was moved to investigate her father’s time in Auschwitz and to unpack how the experience shaped his—and by extension her—love of food and obsession with joy. Recounting major meals and events in her life, from a bumpy marriage to her decision to become a chef, Reichert weaves a rich narrative tapestry that traces her journey toward self-knowledge in luminous prose. Nimble and nourishing, this is not to be missed. Agent: Michelle Tessler, Tessler Literary.

    • Booklist

      Starred review from December 1, 2024
      Canadian writer and chef Reichert pays homage to her upbringing by focusing the lens on her Holocaust-survivor father. Told in fluid prose evoking strong emotions, the tale of her father's survival is also the memoir of her own life's journey. A relatable intergenerational dynamic makes it difficult for her father to understand her need to pursue her own path, which includes an unhappy first marriage, divorce, and a midlife career change. But their strong bond resolves as he tells her his most difficult stories. Reichert's curiosity, love, and respect for her father push her to persevere, taking risks in her personal life and career, while he insists she stop to just enjoy "a happy life." Reichert weaves in her lifelong passion for cooking, beginning with her Ukrainian grandmother, Baba Sarah, who teaches her to make potato knishes, wild blueberry varenikes (dumplings), and grieven (crunchy fried chicken skin). It continues as she raises a family on local produce and home-baked tarts, becomes an editor and writer, and, after culinary school, spends hours perfecting a pre-war favorite of her father's, cholent (beef stew with potatoes). This often harrowing but ultimately life-affirming tale of family bonds, food, and love will touch even the most hardened of readers.

      COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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