THE Books

Beacon Press (2022)

What’s on our plates relates to what’s off:  grief, pleasure, love, race, and class. In Breaking Bread, nearly 70 renowned New England writers gather round the table to talk food, family, and community.

Here, you’ll find Lily King’s memories of a tweaked chocolate chip cookie recipe, Richard Russo on the Italian soup his mother once snubbed, and Jennifer Finney Boylan on her family’s pizza baking tradition. Susan Minot writes about the non-food food of her youth, and Richard Ford about why food doesn’t much interest him. Nancy Harmon Jenkins talks scallops, and Sandy Oliver the pleasures of being a locavore. Others address a beloved childhood food from Iran, the horror of starving in a prison camp, the urge to bake pot brownies for a sick friend, and the delight of buying a prized chocolate egg for a child.

PRAISE
Publisher’s Weekly
“These intimate reflections hit the spot.”
Portland Press Herald
“Food writing doesn’t get much more inspirational than [Breaking Bread].”