A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes From My Kitchen

"She makes cookies with Leslie Fretwell!"

"I think her prom date was Billy Bozalis, Lisa's little brother."

Above, just a few of the excited emails between my mother and me regarding Molly Wizenberg's delightful book, A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes From My Kitchen Table.

Of the four cities I've lived in, Molly writes about the two which we overlap-- Oklahoma City and Seattle. And being a third generation Oklahoman, I eagerly picked apart the clues to places and faces she referenced. She writes about running through the yards at the Oklahoma Art Museum's summer jazz concerts (which caused me to call my mom squealing, since I did that too!) and her references to school prompted me to contact my Oklahoma friends, and sure enough, she attended the same school as me! (Although she must have been at least a year behind me).

She also writes about never feeling quite comfortable in Oklahoma and packing her bags at 18, nary a plan to move back. Sounded familiar.

I had my doubts before starting this book. Sometimes bloggers are good at blogging but not so good at writing (and vice versa). It's two different mediums. And sometimes memoris devolve into rants. Would Molly's witty posts about food translate to a book format? Indeed, yes. The book was a narrative and memoir of sorts, detailing her life leading up to her father's death, and her life since. She moved and started blogging just after, so Burg's death was a key point in her life in many ways. Each chapter is a short story about her life and then includes an accessible recipe-- perhaps macaroons or cookies her mom makes, or perhaps the chocolate cake she serves at her wedding. She includes recipes like Chana Masala introduced to her by her now husband, Brandon and salads shared with friends.

Her stories are bittersweet, honest, funny. A rare combination. If, like me, you don't actually know Molly, but feel like you do or feel like you want to, there's a recipe for that: read, relax, enjoy.

5/5 netflix stars (I'm either really loving or really hating books these days).

Alone In The Kitchen With An Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone

Everyone has some experience eating alone. Perhaps you were a BU student and sat in the G.S.U. during a break in your afternoon classes and ate a BK chicken sandwich. Or perhaps you travel for business and order room service. Maybe you just moved to a new city and go out to eat regardless if you have friends yet who will join you.

In Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant, Jenni Ferrari-Adler compiles essays by such noted writers as M.F.K. Fischer, Amanda Hesser, Steve Almond, Ann Patchett and Laurie Colwin, about cooking and dining alone (or in one case, the desire to cook and dine alone!). Each essay provides a glimpse into a personal life and often, a recipe.

I picked up this book book because most evenings I eat alone so I wanted to find out how other people did it. Did they overcook like I tend to? Do they snack their way through a box of crackers and a bottle of wine? Did they forego any pretense of nutrition and instead devour a pint of ice cream?

Far from being a sad book on lonliness, nearly all the contributors looked upon their eating alone days as some of the best in their lives. Each essay made me smile and at least half had me laughing out loud.

What do I eat when I eat alone? I'm not a take-out kind of girl and prefer my own lunches to those of the hospital cafeteria where I work. So I cook on Sundays-- lots of quiches and gratins, soups, stews and things that can last a week or live awhile in the freezer. And the nice thing about eating alone IS that I can eat when and what I want. A few summers back I craved a BLT made with one of the juicy heirlooms I'd just picked up from the farmer's market. But rather than buy bread, I decided to make my own. Nearing midnight, my bread hot out of the oven, I made myself the best BLT I've ever had. And reading this book reminded me why, in part, that was. We are our own best company.

Netflix stars 5/5.

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

In high school we had a foreign exchange student from Italy, Laura, attend Wichita Public High School for a year. You are welcome to think that living in Wichita for a year would be a more of a punishment rather than an "equal exchange", but I like to think that probably more than any of us who currently live in major metropolitan U.S. cities, she got a feel for how the majority of Americans live. I remember her telling me that she missed mozzarella-- at home it was fresh and came packed in liquid. I had no idea what she was talking about-- mozzarella, like all cheese, came shrink wrapped in a uniform block and resided in the refrigerated section at Dillons.

When I moved to Boston after graduation, I was suddenly exposed to many more fresh foods: the fresh mozzarella, fresh pasta and sauce, fresh, brown eggs and...the Farmer's Market! (I also missed foods of my own, like pimento cheese spread.)

It's now been more than 10 years and I eat and cook much different than I did growing up. Part of this is expense-- the prepackaged food are more expensive than making a huge pot of red beans and rice. But part of it is also thanks to Michael Pollan. The Omnivore's Dilemma exposed how much high fructose corn syrup is in everything and how Big Farming has environmental as well as health costs. If we're able to be responsible consumers, why shouldn't we?

His new book, In Defense of Food, tells us how to identify the real food (fresh mozz in water) from the fake food (block of white cheese "product" encapsulated in plastic with a list of ingredients longer than this post). Pollan tells us that we've been duped by scientists and nutritionists with every passing food fad (currently Omega-3s) and that sometimes the sum is greater than the parts (supplements just don't provide the same total nutrition that whole grains and plants do). His advice is threefold: Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants. Sounds easy and logical, but he breaks down how the Western Diet has made it difficult; we eat mostly processed and refined foods, with additives, we eat portion sizes much bigger than most cultures, and take our cues on satiation not on feeling, but on visual clues and finally we are a culture which eats many pounds more of meat per person per year than other cultures.

Mr. Pollan's premise in this book is radical because it is so different than how we eat, and how we grew up eating. It presents a doable challenge and ultimately reminds us that is what is good for the environment is also good for our health, and vice versa. This book gets 5/5 netflix stars.