This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.
In this delightful and much buzzed-about essay collection, 26 food writers like Nora Ephron, Laurie Colwin, Jami Attenberg, Ann Patchett, and M. F. K. Fisher invite readers into their kitchens to reflect on the secret meals and recipes for one person that they relish when no one else is looking. Part solace, part celebration, part handbook, Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant offers a wealth of company, inspiration, and humor--and finally, solo recipes in these essays about food that require no division or subtraction, for readers of Gabrielle Hamilton's Blood, Bones & Butter and Tamar Adler's The Everlasting Meal. Featuring essays by: Steve Almond, Jonathan Ames, Jami Attenberg, Laura Calder, Mary Cantwell, Dan Chaon, Laurie Colwin, Laura Dave, Courtney Eldridge, Nora Ephron, Erin Ergenbright, M. F. K. Fisher, Colin Harrison, Marcella Hazan, Amanda Hesser, Holly Hughes, Jeremy Jackson, Rosa Jurjevics, Ben Karlin, Rattawut Lapcharoensap, Beverly Lowry, Haruki Murakami, Phoebe Nobles, Ann Patchett, Anneli Rufus and Paula Wolfert. View our feature on the essay collection Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant.… (more)
A collection of essays by food writers and fiction writers about their thoughts on and experiences in cooking and/or eating alone, whether it's trying to make elaborate meals in a tiny apartment, taking yourself out to a fancy restaurant, or eating cold refried beans out of a can while standing in the kitchen.
I bought this one because something about the title snagged my attention and wouldn't let it go, and because I found it at one of those library sales where everything is so cheap that there seems to be no reason not to just grab every book with a title that tickles you. Once I got it home, though, I wondered if that might have been a mistake, as it didn't really seem like my sort of thing at all. I am basically the antithesis of a foodie. I don't cook much to speak of, my tastes are utterly pedestrian, and I tend to look askance at food snobs. I also, as an inveterate loner, have very little patience for the common belief that dining alone is somehow weird or sad or socially unacceptable.
And, sure enough, there's quite a bit of food snobbery here, and several folks insisting that eating really should be a social activity, and a bunch of recipes that I couldn't cook if my life depended on it and probably wouldn't eat if you paid me. And yet, to my surprise... I liked it. Most of these essays are very well-written and thoughtful, and they provided some interesting little glimpses into people with lives and relationships with food that are very different from mine. So, hey, good job, Past Me, on that grabbing-books-with-eye-catching-titles strategy! ( )
Delightful. The editor's intro is as good as any of these intimate essays. The group is spotty and the last half doesn't live up to the first. Good stuff. ( )
This was a wonderful compilation of brilliant writers on the topic of food and being by oneself. From hating it to relishing it, from fancy food to saltines, all of the stories were fun to read. ( )
An interesting collection of essays on the joys or fears of cooking and eating alone. I think I will most remember this book for learning that Ann Patchett shares my guilty love of Spaghetti-Os. As someone who enjoys cooking but has lived alone for much of my adult life, I found a lot here that resonated with me. ( )
It is the privilege of loneliness; in privacy one may do as one chooses. Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
Dinner alone is one of life's pleasures. Certainly cooking for oneself reveals man at his weirdest. People lie when you ask them what they eat when they are alone. A salad, they tell you. But when you persist, they confess to peanut butter and bacon deep fried and eaten with hot sauce, or spaghetti with butter and grape jam. Laurie Colwin, "Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant," Home Cooking.
Dedication
For Jofie
First words
Call it seven-thirty on a Wednesday night. No one else is home. A slight hunger hums in your body, so you wander into the kitchen.
Quotations
I have friends who begin with pasta, and friends who begin with rice, but whenever I fall in love, I begin with potatoes. Sometimes meat and potatoes and sometimes fish and potatoes, but always potatoes. I have made a lot of mistakes falling in love, and regretted most of them, but never the potatoes that went with them. —Nora Ephron, "Potatoes and Love: Some Reflections"
After the visitors had left, I would stand over the sink and eat whatever was around, whatever I needed in order to go and do the work that I love. Even now it is a picture of heaven to me, an evening spent alone and well fed in the tradition of my own low standards. —Ann Patchett, "Dinner for One, Please, James"
To begin: buy yourself some raw tiger-tail shrimp, medium size, two pounds at least. Why tiger tail? Because they are the coolest to order. —Steve Almond, "Que Sera Sarito"
Last words
No matter how fastidiously I followed my mother's recipe for instant noodles, these were entirely different noodles, and I knew that I would need to learn, with time, to find comfort in their flavors, lest I resign myself to bitterness. - Rattawut Lapcharoensap 'Instant Noodles"
In this delightful and much buzzed-about essay collection, 26 food writers like Nora Ephron, Laurie Colwin, Jami Attenberg, Ann Patchett, and M. F. K. Fisher invite readers into their kitchens to reflect on the secret meals and recipes for one person that they relish when no one else is looking. Part solace, part celebration, part handbook, Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant offers a wealth of company, inspiration, and humor--and finally, solo recipes in these essays about food that require no division or subtraction, for readers of Gabrielle Hamilton's Blood, Bones & Butter and Tamar Adler's The Everlasting Meal. Featuring essays by: Steve Almond, Jonathan Ames, Jami Attenberg, Laura Calder, Mary Cantwell, Dan Chaon, Laurie Colwin, Laura Dave, Courtney Eldridge, Nora Ephron, Erin Ergenbright, M. F. K. Fisher, Colin Harrison, Marcella Hazan, Amanda Hesser, Holly Hughes, Jeremy Jackson, Rosa Jurjevics, Ben Karlin, Rattawut Lapcharoensap, Beverly Lowry, Haruki Murakami, Phoebe Nobles, Ann Patchett, Anneli Rufus and Paula Wolfert. View our feature on the essay collection Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant.
▾Library descriptions
No library descriptions found.
▾LibraryThing members' description
Book description
If, sooner or later, we all face the challenge or the pleasure of eating alone, then Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant provides the perfect set of instructions. In this unique collection, twenty-six writers and foodies invite readers into their kitchens to reflect on the secret meals they make for themselves when no one else is looking: the indulgent truffled egg sandwich, the comforting bowl of black beans, the bracing anchovy fillet on buttered toast. From Italy to New York to Cape Cod to Thailand, from M. F. K. Fisher to Steve Almond to Nora Ephron, the experiences collected in this book are as diverse, moving, hilarious, and uplifting as the meals they describe. Haruki Murakami finds solace in spaghetti. Ephron mends a broken heart with mashed potatoes in bed. Ann Patchett trades the gourmet food she cooks for others for endless snacks involving saltines. Marcella Hazan, responsible for bringing sophisticated Italian cuisine into American homes, craves a simple grilled ham-and-cheese sandwich. Courtney Eldridge, divorced from a fancy chef, reconnects with the salsa she learned to make from her cash-strapped mother. Rosa Jurjevics reflects on the influence of her mother, Laurie Colwin, as she stocks her home with salty snacks. Almost all of the essays include recipes, making this book the perfect companion for a happy, lonely—or just hungry—evening home alone. Part solace, part celebration, part handbook, Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant offers a wealth of company, inspiration, and humor—and finally, recipes that require no division or subtraction. "I have friends who begin with pasta, and friends who begin with rice, but whenever I fall in love, I begin with potatoes. Sometimes meat and potatoes and sometimes fish and potatoes, but always potatoes. I have made a lot of mistakes falling in love, and regretted most of them, but never the potatoes that went with them." —Nora Ephron, "Potatoes and Love: Some Reflections" "After the visitors had left, I would stand over the sink and eat whatever was around, whatever I needed in order to go and do the work that I love. Even now it is a picture of heaven to me, an evening spent alone and well fed in the tradition of my own low standards." —Ann Patchett, "Dinner for One, Please, James" "To begin: buy yourself some raw tiger-tail shrimp, medium size, two pounds at least. Why tiger tail? Because they are the coolest to order." —Steve Almond, "Que Sera Sarito"
Haiku summary
LibraryThing Author
Jenni Ferrari-Adler is a LibraryThing Author, an author who lists their personal library on LibraryThing.
I bought this one because something about the title snagged my attention and wouldn't let it go, and because I found it at one of those library sales where everything is so cheap that there seems to be no reason not to just grab every book with a title that tickles you. Once I got it home, though, I wondered if that might have been a mistake, as it didn't really seem like my sort of thing at all. I am basically the antithesis of a foodie. I don't cook much to speak of, my tastes are utterly pedestrian, and I tend to look askance at food snobs. I also, as an inveterate loner, have very little patience for the common belief that dining alone is somehow weird or sad or socially unacceptable.
And, sure enough, there's quite a bit of food snobbery here, and several folks insisting that eating really should be a social activity, and a bunch of recipes that I couldn't cook if my life depended on it and probably wouldn't eat if you paid me. And yet, to my surprise... I liked it. Most of these essays are very well-written and thoughtful, and they provided some interesting little glimpses into people with lives and relationships with food that are very different from mine. So, hey, good job, Past Me, on that grabbing-books-with-eye-catching-titles strategy! ( )