The Blue Plate Special by Kate Christensen

Recently I have been reading a new book that I picked up in the Seattle airport coming back to Michigan from a family trip to Alaska.  My mom and I were originally drawn to it because of the cover, depicting a gloriously lopsided stack of pancakes covered in melting pats of butter and dripping with syrup.  I had never read anything by Kate Christensen before, but now I will definitely look into some of her other books.

This book is unlike any book I've ever read before.  It's written with such detail and passion and it made me wonder if I could recollect my own life as well as Kate did hers.  I love books that feature food along the plot line, making your mouth water with every turn of the page.  Passages like the following are the type of writing that made my stomach gurgle in hunger as I devoured this book.

"One night the entire supper consisted soley of boiled zucchini, boiled potatoes, and homemade bread and cheese.  They called the zucchini courgettes, but they didn't fool me: I knew that stuff when I saw it.  I remembered a;; too well the horrible stuff from our Phoenix backyard, the zucchini bread at the Threefold guesthouse.  I sat down with disappointment and dread.
And then I tasted the zucchini.  It was sublime, subtly multidimensional in flavor and velvety in texture, not like succhini at all but some fair like, delicate thing of palest green, very fresh, with an herblike essence." -- An excerpt from Blue Plate Special by Kate Christensen

Sometimes I had to remind myself that this was an autobiography and not a novel.  In a way, reading this book was like having a chat with an old friend.  Each chapter was its own little one-sided conversation over a meal or a great cup of coffee with a friend.  Because of this, I often enjoyed this book with a pot of strong espresso and a dash of heavy cream while reading.

This book reminded me of how food plays a huge role in shaping every person's life, even if you don't think so.  Food is nourishment, it soothes us, or for some, it can be a source of pain.  Everyone can relate to food in some way.  Food brings memories, little flashes of our past captured in tastes and flavors.  And it brings people together, uniting them in a common source of love.