Meet Me at the Bamboo Table: Everyday Meals Everywhere

A delightful journey. Crofts is an engaging companion, freely sharing anecdotes and images from her wide-ranging travels. Like the best memoirists, she’s self-aware without being self-involved. Her musings about her own history are full of insight and humor instead of pity; her observations about the people she meets brim with warmth and affection, not jealousy, judgment or other negativity. I only wish the gorgeous photos came with captions -- a very minor complaint about a marvelous memoir.

Well, here's a lovely book: delightfully designed and presented--and creative, to boot. I'd never heard of Chin Music Press out of Seattle (so kudos to the LibraryThing Early Reviewers Scheme for placing them on my radar); but, even after visiting their website, I still can't figure out the press mark: a satellite in outer space with huge asteroids hurtling toward some invisible destination? (And I promise I've studied the image, trying to figure out whether to look at the negative space or the positive space, all to no avail.) But that matter is unrelated to the book at hand, which I would describe as a collection of postcards: short reflections of the author's travels near and far. Food is a theme but is not necessarily the strongest: show more identity, purpose, and friends and family appear throughout. Now, I'll admit that I wasn't as enamored by those other themes; writing about one's friends is a challenge to do in a captivating manner. (Why should a reader care, really?)

But I loved the aesthetics of the volume--and the photographs (principally by the author) that were scattered throughout. She mentions on p. 98 having started "sketchnoting" her meals "as a way to relive and recall the memory." Examples of such sketchnotes, I presume, appear on pp. 95 and 204 and are delightful: I'd love to see more--or perhaps a book built around them.

The matte paper makes for a pleasant reading experience, although the gutter was a bit tight. Somehow the shape of Sudan resurfaced where Sweden should have been in silhouette (p. 141), but that's a minor issue. I was reminded of Kate Williamson's delightful 2006 eyefeast from Princeton Architectural Press, A Year in Japan: the dimensions are similar, though the French flaps of Williamson's book are deeper, and the paper is slightly thicker.

Did Meet Me at the Bamboo Table leave me hungry? Not really. But it did make me want to travel again--and it reminded me of the import of learning as much about a culture and its people in order to benefit from travel and exploration: tourism alone will not transcend to bridge deeper human connections, and dining alone anywhere is, well, missing out on half the fun. show less

The essays and accompanying pictures were perfect for this sort of reading. The author is a well traveled person who has lived in many places around the globe. She keeps notebooks and makes drawings and notes about her experiences traveling and eating. This little book of essays is the published result of those notes and travel experiences. They cover territory from China in the 1990's to Italy and recently in the war zones of Syria. This type of book is a perfect mental break and the essays are easily read in 10 minutes or less. This is not an essay book to make you think, but one to make you want to sink into the comfy atmosphere it provides for a reader or dreamer.

A memoir in fractured personal essays, more about travel than food. Zigzags around in time (1970s to today) and place (global). Good sense of places but less a sense of the foods. Photos are evocative and pleasing but they’re not captioned, so it’s sometimes unclear what food/place they show, and whether they relate to the text.

Some favorite passages:

You never need a fortune to eat like royalty.

Each night before heading to bed, my grandmother [arranged] breakfast place settings at the end of the kitchen island. [...] It felt special to witness this evening tradition and the practice of anticipating the first meal of the day. The intentionality also bespoke the adoration my grandparents had for one another.

In a [Syrian] war zone, show more setting out breakfast at home with your family is more than just an act of love -- it is hope. show less

This book made it to my food-driven narrative shelf thanks to Librarything in exchange for an honest review. I only denied it 1/2 a star because if I don't want to automatically reread it after I've finished it, then it's missing a little something further compelling. Written by a culturally savvy and academically experienced author, Crofts takes us from Seattle to China and captures some of the finest plates in her narrative. If food can tell our story and express our essence then Crofts is living well and refined life that all of us should aspire to. She takes plates to their foundational ingredients and exemplifies the beautiful marriage between them. It's missing a little self-discovery or subtextual purpose for me, but I wouldn't show more hesitate to use her work as a definitive example of what excellent food writing can sound, look, smell and taste like. show less

Food and travel writing brings taste and place together for good and bad memories. A.V. Crofts was able to bring me along with her on her travel and tasting adventures around the world. It made me want to be much more present with my dining experiences at home and overseas as connection with others is another important component of the fun of it all.

This collection of extremely short essays centered around food and travel span decades and continents. Crofts provides colorful images to pair with her brief vignettes about her study in China during the 1990's, her work trips to the Sudan and Syria as well as pleasure trips to several other locales. While it was a charming light read I couldn't quite find a cohesive thread throughout the essays-it was more of a friend's ramblings then a collection-it certainly wasn't organized chronologically, geographically, or even thematically as far as I could tell. While it was a pleasant romp it also came across rather self-indulgent.