Summer Reads: Kitchen Bliss: musings on food and happiness (with recipes)

This is part of my Summer Reads series where I’ll be sharing book recommendations –  a series of “not just cookbooks”.

Kitchen Bliss: Musings on Food and Happiness (with recipes) by Laura Calder is the perfect summer read for those who like to cook but who enjoy longer stories than most headnotes in cookbooks provide. I love Laura’s writing style and couldn’t wait to read this latest offering – stories with recipes is a genre of “food memoir” I really enjoy reading – ostensibly because you can just read one or two of the stories/ chapters at a time – although I admit to reading this book in one day – it was a page turner and definitely “unputdownable”.

From the publisher:

During the years of the global pandemic, Laura Calder, like many home cooks, found herself being drawn into the kitchen and becoming reacquainted with the power that the room can have to restore us when the going gets tough. In Kitchen Bliss, she reflects on how and why the kitchen and the dining table have held such an important place in her life and indeed taught her about happiness.

In her inimitably wise, warm, and quirky voice, she shares stories about everything from her shattered childhood fantasies about Sultana cake, to a gastronomically disastrous camel safari, the perilous vicissitudes of daily dishwashing by hand, and how she identifies (positively, if you can believe it) with ground meat. Stories and musings on Emily Post’s concept of a “Little Dinner” (for eight, a mere bagatelle!), unsatisfying adventures at cooking school, hopeless kitchens and how to cook in them anyway, and the English aversion to warm toast are all accompanied by recipes to soothe, inspire, and delight. Nothing too fancy here, just perfect recipes for dishes like Disgustingly Rich Potatoes, Salted Caramel Ice Cream, Hainanese Chicken Rice, and The Full Quebecois Breakfast. Come for the stories, stay for the food!

Laura has spent her life considering the life-enhancing pleasures of food: cooking, eating, and feeding. The pandemic gave her a new sense of urgency to share what she has learned. She says, “Life isn’t always a candy shop of delights, pandemic or no pandemic. Often we find ourselves in uncomfortable places and we must learn to create sweetness for ourselves out of whatever it is we’ve got—and that sometimes can seem like nothing but a whole lot of lemons. Well, at least that’s a start! We all know where to find the lemons: in the kitchen.”

Like Laura’s previous book, The Inviting Life (which I reviewed here), Kitchen Bliss is more a lifestyle book although it’s focused on food than “homemaking and being a fine host” as The Inviting Life was. Recipes are intertwined with memories of meals, experiences, and kitchens past and if the amount of “want to make” recipes that I marked is anything to go on, Calder has selected *just the right recipes*!

(sorry, I normally NEVER turn down the pages of books but there were too many for the Post-its I had on hand)

With 37 short chapters/ stories, each with its own set of associated recipes (2-3 per chapter), this is a book that will appeal to those looking for accessible recipes as much as it will to those who are more interested in the stories. Indeed, a friend who was flipping through the book suggested they might just read the story parts and not the recipes (though, I dare you to NOT read over the recipes which have an integral part to each story).

That this book was written during the pandemic is evident as she references lockdowns, physical distancing, and “social bubbles”. I loved the opportunity to peek inside someone else’s pandemic experience and watch as Calder’s world suddenly got very small and then, over the course of many months, gradually expanded, with entertaining (albeit outside for the majority of the pandemic) back on the table so to speak.

The alone time (with her husband) during the various lockdowns gave Calder the time to re-discover her kitchen (like many of us) and lots of time to think, hence the musings about her childhood, cooking, ingredients, entertaining, the restaurant industry, her culinary school experience, appliances, dishwashing, etiquette, setting a table, and her extensive travels to name but a few. There are a lot of subjects that would appeal not just to “foodie” readers but everyone.

I loved the “Hopeless Kitchens I Have Known” chapter (the first one, this really hooked me as a reader!) and personally related to her “highly influential and inadequate” Paris kitchen, having lived with one of those myself for 4 of the years I lived in Paris. Despite the fact that the shower and the “bathroom cupboard” occupied a LOT of real estate and the bar fridge and two burner hotplate unit occupied a woefully small amount of space (and the kitchen counter was non-existent), I managed to host many a successful dinner (in the adjacent “bedroom/ living room”.  As Calder points out about her own early Paris kitchen, what it “lacked in terms of practicality, it made up for in charisma”. EXACTLY!

This is a delightful read that I truly believe appeals to even non-cooks/ bakers. But for the cooks and bakers out there, there are MANY recipes that will appeal as well. HIGHLY recommend it as a summer read but actually an anytime read!

 

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher. I was not asked to review the book and am not receiving any compensation for doing so. Neither the author nor the publisher reviewed this post prior to publication. All opinions are my own.

Buy Kitchen Bliss on Amazon (this affiliate link should bring you to the Amazon store in, or closest to, your country).

Please note: This post contains affiliate links. I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.   This means that if you click over and purchase something, I will receive a very small percentage of the purchase price (at no extra cost to you). Thank you in advance!

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Buy my books! In the French kitchen with kids and French Food for Everyone: le goûter  (after school snacks), le dîner (dinner) and le petit déjeuner (breakfast) are out now! Click here for details and how to order!

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