Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* In this heartwarming (and often mouth-watering) memoir, German-born chef and writer Weiss recounts how cooking helped her cope with an upbringing spent shuttling between divorced parents on two continents: her professor father in Brookline, Massachusetts, and her mother, an interpreter, in Berlin. Through hardship and heartbreak, she found solace among saucepans and stews. She gradually honed her culinary skills, learning coveted techniques from seasoned cooks and begging for top-secret recipes among relatives and friends. (It was here that the seeds of her popular blog, The Wednesday Chef, were planted.) As a young adult, Weiss found herself in New York with a dream job and a relationship with a very nice man. But Germany, and in particular Berlin, seemed to be summoning her, and she followed her heart. There she experienced ups and downs, both inside the kitchen and out. And she found the love of her life, Max, who relished her culinary creations, from buttermilk panna cotta to pickled herring. Foodies and nonfoodies alike will enjoy chapters brimming with colorful cooking tales and savory recipes.--Block, Allison Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Shuttled as a child of divorced parents between her Italian mother's residence in Berlin and her mathematician father's apartment near Boston, Weiss found a refuge for her "divided heart" in cooking. Living in New York City as a young publishing assistant and scout, she lived for a while with the companionable Sam, assuaging her career dissatisfaction by cooking and eventually starting a blog inspired by Julie Powell's, called the Wednesday Chef, in which Weiss winnowed through stacks of recipes over a year and become a masterful cook, with Sam as eager guinea pig. Despite plans for marriage, however, at age 30, Weiss recognized how much she missed Berlin; resolved to stop being the obedient, dutiful daughter and make herself happy first, she moved back to the city in 2009, hooking up with an old boyfriend, Max, and finding the pieces of her life converging beautifully. Although the German temperament (described variously as blunt, languid, and simple) didn't always suit her, and she couldn't find bitter greens that she loved in New York, she threw herself into making some of the traditional German favorites such as seasonal baking of plum cake (Zwetschgen) and Kartoffelsalat. Recipes include some curious crowd-pleasers such as Rote Grutze with vanilla sauce and slow-baked quince, but also Italian tried-and-true dishes like ragu alla Bolognese and pizza Napoletana-since this thoughtful, earnestly winning memoir naturally ends in an Italian wedding. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Readers of Weiss's popular cooking blog, thewednesdaychef.com, know some of her personal history: a childhood split between her father in Boston and her mother in Berlin, her young adulthood working in publishing in New York City, the broken engagement and subsequent move to Berlin, followed by falling in love all over again with the city and the man who would eventually become her husband. This memoir fills in some of the blanks, exploring the loneliness and alienation of a child who never quite feels at home wherever she is, the postcollege time in Paris when she learned that "there was no shame in realizing that living in Paris was far less magical than visiting it," and the debilitating heartbreak when an important relationship fails. But there is plenty of joy, too: summers at her grandparents' Italian farmhouse, falling in love, and, always, the pleasures of the kitchen. Each chapter closes with a recipe for a dish referenced in the text, most of which represent one of the places Weiss has called home: German dishes like Pflaumenkuchen (yeasted plum cake) and Erbsensuppe (pea soup), Italian specialities like Peperoni al Forno Conditi (roasted pepper salad) and Bracioline di Antonietta (grilled beef skewers), French fare including Braised Endives and Poulet Saute a la Paysanne Provencale (a rustic chicken dish), and a few American dishes, like her father's recipe for something called Depression Stew. VERDICT This charming food memoir will prove enjoyable to anyone who loves Laurie Colwin or M.L.K. Fisher.-Stephanie Klose, Library Journal (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
In her debut, The Wednesday Chef blogger recounts her life in and out of the kitchen. Weiss grew up shuttling between Berlin, where her Italian mother lived, and Brookline, Mass., home of her American father. As an adult, she moved from Paris to New York, where she began a food blog, until finally returning to Berlin to marry. Unfortunately, this coming-of-age memoir (with recipes) is fretful and flabby, and much of the prose violates the show-don't-tell rule of writing. In one section, she describes how a pigeon almost collides with her head, interpreting the event as a sign from the universe that she should break up with her fianc. In the hands of a more experienced writer, this could have been a gripping, even moving, discovery, but Weiss' retelling of the event is unfocused and rambling--more fit for a stream-of-consciousness blog than a full-length book. Each overinflated chapter closes with a recipe from the author's blog or from her personal life. A few of the recipes (e.g., spaghetti with breadcrumbs, capers and parsley) are so rudimentary, anyone who knows their way around a kitchen may wonder why they were included at all. But many more are ludicrously complicated, such as poppy-seed breakfast rolls that take more than three hours to make and "don't keep well, so make sure to eat them warm the morning they're made." Still others require ingredients most Americans will be unable to find--e.g., one recipe calls for "20 to 25 elderflower sprays." Weiss' suggestion is to "look for them in the wild." Much of the often-clunky writing leads to queasy descriptions of food, like a white asparagus salad "slurped uplustily" and an "unctuous, quivering rag." Half-baked and unappetizing.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
