A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg, 2009.
Last night, I bought my first Kindle book. I’ve been browsing sample chapters and free books in the sparse free time I have had, but this was the first sample I couldn’t put down. I fixed myself the first coffee in weeks (I have now decided it isn’t coffee causing my eczema) and stayed up until the wee hours reading until my eyes burned and I conceded to sleep. In the morning, I picked up where I left off. Then at the last moment, I got up, went out, had yum cha with my family in Newmarket and came home and finished the book. I salivated, I almost cried, I envied and I almost cried again. I’m tough like that. It takes a bit to make me cry. This book would make a prone person weep cats and dogs.
Molly’s book is like reading your foodie friend’s letters and favourite recipes and it makes sense, since Molly writes a food blog called Orangette. It’s not a blog a I read…until now. I love the context she gives to each of her recipes in her book. It’s more like a foodie memoir and exactly the kind of book I like to read. It’s non-fiction, but reads like a story with various tasty tidbits throughout. She also has a long love affair with Paris, one of the most romantic and longed for foodie destinations.
This book has me craving to eat at a bouchon, to make and eat dutch babies, tarte tartin, cider-glazed slamon and pickled grapes.
Kindle
I love reading via Kindle on my iPad. It really is a pleasure. If you are considering getting one and looking for a few more excuses, here are some of the reasons why I love reading via Kindle.
I adore the dictionary and search function. After you download the free dictionary on Kindle, whenever you come across a word you would like the meaning of, you just touch the word and hold down for a second. The definition pops up a the bottom of the screen. If there is no definition, you can choose to search the word in either Google or Wikipedia. I find this particularly good when reading books on exotic dishes or faraway places. I can Google Image Search the dish or check out a map of the place. You can also highlight words, lines or whole sections of your Kindle book and put bookmarks where ever you like for more indepth investigating when you have more time. If you have any bookworm or nerd in your blood, this will make you squeal with glee.
One thing that I realised only after I bought the Kindle Edition of this book is that all the images are missing from this edition. Camilla Engman is credited with the illustrations for this book and if anyone could point me to somewhere where I could view them online, it would be greatly appreciated. It’s not often a foodie book is filled with sweet illustrations so naturally, I’m a bit bummed that I’ve missed out.
Some of my favourite morsels from A Homemade Life
On working in a restaurant…
I never saw the faces of the people who ate what I had prepared…I didn’t like the discontinuity between the kitchen and the dining room, between the procedure of cooking and the pleasure of eating.
On traveling…
“The only reason I travel,” he wrote, “is for an excuse to eat more than usual.”
On sprouts for dinner…
…hell hath no fury like a woman starved.
On cooking for one…
I learned that I love to cook for one…It is one of the few moments when I can be perfectly selfish without feeling guilty.
On the rustic bouchon in Lyon…
There’s no fussy presentation to besmirch with your fork, nor is there any gnashing of teeth over what to order. You eat what you’re given.
So yeah…
In conclusion, you should read this book. It’s highly entertaining and a pleasure to read and if you are anything like me, you will want to read it in 1 sitting. You can find out more about this book on the Orangette website.
Book reviews:
This is my first book review and I hope to read and review a food related book every month during 2012.
Bunny Eats Design 
Great post and site! I wondered if you might be interested in reviewing one of my novels?
http://anilbalan.com/
Hi Ani, I would be happy to read and review one of your novels if you have pieces related to rabbits, food or design.
I write short ghost stories so my work probably isn’t suitable – thanks anyway though.
I wouldn’t be a good authority on ghost stories but good luck with your writing.
Great review! I’ve read the blog a few times but didn’t realise a book had been released, how exciting for her. Hope you get hold of the pictures though, a shame to miss out! I’ve had a play on some of my friends’ kindles, the dictionary function is so cool.
Yeah, I feel like the dictionary function is so good that I’ve been missing out on “proper” reading all my life.
this is a great review, i’ve very very casually read Orangette and thought of reading thru her book. it sounds like it really hit a chord in you, which is always a sign of a good book!
i personally love my kindle, i have the regular version and have resisted installing the app on my ipad, mainly because i use my ipad to play bejeweled or to watch Netflix. the dictionary function is the best feature, i think, so useful.
Thanks Lan. Do you have any issues with illustrations on Kindle? I adore Bejeweled. I spend far too much time playing that game. But I do find it soothing.
This is a really great review. I too have casually paged through Orangette, but until I read your post, I hadn’t followed it that closely. Thanks for pulling my attention back to Molly!
(And I love my Kindle too! No more lugging tons of heavy books on vacation either!)
Thanks Baconbiscuit. Love your name by the way. I look forward to going traveling overseas with Kindle, although being on holiday was pretty good too.
I have major crush on Molly and totally didn’t think of getting her book on Kindle (I got one for my birthday!) Going to download the sample n.o.w.
I hope you have some free time lined up Sasa, because you may find after you read the sample, that you have to get the full book and read it all continuously.
That is one of my favourite books! I’ve read it more than five times now 😉 I can’t wait for her second book to be out!
Orangette is one of my favorite blogs, so naturally I enjoyed reading A Homemade Life. You mentioned craving the dutch babies in the book – I can attest to the quality of the recipe, I’ve made it many times and fiddled around with it quite a bit. In fact, my dutch baby with bacon and roasted apple recipe is a take on Molly’s dutch baby recipe http://bowllicking.com/2012/01/17/dutchbaby/.
Thanks for sharing this Nicole!