Jessica Fechtor

This is an extraordinary book.


The writing is exceptional.

You are transported into Jess's world - you can smell the aromas she describes, imagine the texture of the berries she ate while in the hospital, you can feel the frustration she expresses.
Very descriptive writing.

For anyone who hasn't read the synopsis or jacket, here is what it's about. A young woman has an aneurysm as she is running on a treadmill. This is a healthy woman who is in graduate school at Harvard. She nearly died and show more went through multiple surgeries. Her skull was cut apart and deformed, she lost vision in one eye and yet with all the odds stacked against her - she persevered. She survived and while she was recovering, she thought about the foods that made a difference in her life and above all - she remained positive.

There are 33 chapters with 26 of those followed by a recipe. I have prepared several already and can endorse those as keepers.

In the chapter titled The All Clear, Jessica writes about her blog Sweet Amandine.

"People were reading my blog. They were leaving comments, sending emails, asking questions about my recipes and sharing their own. We talked about soup and scones; crisp roasted chickpeas; sesame noodles made with oil, soy sauce, and rice vinegar, and no peanut butter, thank you very much. We did not talk about my brain. they didn't ask me about my blind eye, insist that I sit down, or place a hand on my shoulder and tear up."

I can't imagine how wonderful that was for Jess to share and talk about something besides her brain and how she was doing. A space on the Internet where she was just a regular person, doing regular things and the common interest was cooking. No one treated her differently.

The constant love and support from her family will blow you away. Her husband, her parents and friends - complete and total support. I loved the stories about them as well as reading Jess' thoughts.

It's an inspirational book, it's a love story, it's a foodie book with a slice of life.

I selected this book for two events. Cook the Books has this featured as the December/January selection.

The other event is a new reading challenge I joined this year. It's the 2017 Monthly Motif Challenge hosted at Girlxoxo. The monthly motif for January is Diversify your Reading: Kick the reading year off right and shake things up. Read a book with a character (or written by an author) of a race, religion, or sexual orientation other than your own.

I'm not Christian or Jewish so typically, I don't read books that are religious in nature. This isn't a religious book but the author is Jewish and her religion and culture figure in to the story. I very much enjoyed the sense of community and how the family and friends came together with complete love and support. The description of kosher foods and the process of cooking is addressed. Eating out the kosher way can be an issue but that was addressed too. It was interesting and, more importantly, I learned something reading this book.

There are still a few recipes I want to make but I will share the Pan-Roasted Salmon and the Brown Soda Bread.

The salmon was easy enough but I had a time cleaning my cast iron frying pan! Delicious meal and I would make this again.



(Photos at Novel Meals!)

The Brown Soda Bread challenged me because this was one of the few times I managed to use our digital kitchen scale and - thanks to my husband's assistance - it was measured properly. This came out well and I will most certainly be making this again.



For the soda bread recipe head over to http://tinaculbertson.blogspot.com/2017/01/brown-soda-bread.html. The salmon was a breeze. It's on page 58 in the book.

Pan-Roasted Salmon

1 tablespoon flaked sea salt

2 pieces of salmon fillet with skin on, about a 1/3 pound each

Olive oil

Freshly ground black pepper and lemon wedges

Method: Scatter the salt over a 10 inch dry, well-seasoned cast iron pan. Place pan over medium heat for 3 minutes. While the pan heats dry the fillets with a paper towel and lay them on a plate. Brush with olive oil on both sides.

Place fish in hot pan, skin side down. Turn heat down if the crackle sounds too sputtery. Cover with a lid. Cook without moving fillets for 3 to 5 minutes. Flip them and cook for another 2 to 4 minutes, depending on their thickness.

Serve with pepper and lemon. Brilliant!

Don't forget that soda bread! show less

This heartwarming memoir by Jessica Fechtor describes her unexpected brain aneurysm at the age of twenty-eight, and how she redefined her life afterward with the help of her husband Eli, her family, her friends, and her love of cooking.

I didn’t expect to be as taken with this story as I was, but Fechtor not only has a delightful sense of humor, but seems like a warm, genuine person you wish you knew.

Her story keeps coming back to food, and she shares twenty-seven recipes that were part of show more her healing. She writes that kneading, salting, sifting, and stirring have both curative and protective powers, “because you can’t be dead and do these things.” Cooking made her feel alive again.

Food has other powers too, she explains: “Food is more than what we put into our bodies when we are wherever we are. It’s the feel of a place, something language can’t get at, the memory of a place as it forms.” And later she adds, “Food is the keeper of our memories, connecting us with our pasts and with our people.”

She believes that home is a verb, that you set it in motion, and part of how you do this is by sharing meals with friends. I have already made two of her recipes - the buttermilk biscuits and whole wheat chocolate chip cookies - and the only hard part was the “sharing” because they were so good!

If you just want to see the recipes, you could find them on her blog, Sweet Amandine, along with many other recipes. The fact is, however, her story is just as wonderful.

Evaluation: This is a lovely inspirational story, with great recipes included. (She is very into butter.) You will be very glad you made Jessica’s “acquaintance” from reading this book, and you will be rooting for her all the way. Highly recommended! show less

This was an incredible book. First, Ms Fechtor is a tremendous writer. That''s the objective view of this book. Fechtor takes you through her story, from getting ready for the gym, through her aneurysm, following treatment and rehabilitation. This is a story of bravery, not for withstanding the medical care over several years, and the despair that she might not ever heal completely and have the family she and her husband long for, but for her courage to do SOMETHING that matters to her, and show more those in her life, despite the medical issues.

Anyone who has ever struggled with a medical or emotional well-being issue knows that even getting your thoughts in that direction, let alone planning and acting on those plans is incredibly difficult. Fechtor gives us insight into her progress, as if inviting us to share in it.

Finally, I have a real fondness for books that tells a person's story through their food lives (think Ruth Reichl, Mimi Sheraton, the book "Miriam's Kitchen".). Fechtor joins these authors handily. I thank her for the gift she gave me of sustenance, by sharing her favorite recipes and methods, and by sharing her adaptation and growth after a horrible "betrayal" by her body. show less

Six months ago I had a stroke. I am young, a mother and of course this was completely unexpected and my life was upended. I was scared and in a very dark place. Then I was lucky enough to read "Stir" by Jessica Fechtor. Finally I had a companion, a voice guiding the way a bit. In Yiddish, Jessica would be called a mensch, just a good person. I was uplifted by her voice, by her smarts, by her everyday decency and by seeing how she kept the rhythm of her life going as much as possible, show more allowing others to help when needed, doing what she could for herself. Her writing is strong and descriptive and I felt part of the fabric of the community that enveloped Jessica and Eli as she moved in and out of recovery. I could imagine myself at a Shabbat dinner or just hanging out doing nothing but "being." Her intellect, her faith and her family held her. This is a book about hard times bringing out the best in each other, which is usually a cliche and not true. Here it is true and I loved witnessing the the love between Jessica and Eli and the way that her parents, though divorced came together for their daughter.

Stir is also a book about food. While I sometimes found the placement of the recipes distracting many of her recipes were so familiar. They reminded me of home, of the deli and bakeshops in my neighborhood where I grew up in Brooklyn. There was such a sweetness for me in that and I took pleasure in thinking about how I could cook some of them when I was better. I loved that she was able to be true to herself and shift gears when she realized what was most important to her. This is a true act of courage, and one thing we know from reading this revelatory and eloquent book is that Jessica has plenty of that.

Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me to review this book for an honest opinion show less