Braided

Starred review from August 1, 2018
Ricanati's memoir with recipes is a well-written investigation into her maturation as a doctor, her growth as a wife and mother, and the increasing wisdom she gained while pondering Jewish rites and rituals. Every Friday for 10 years, Los Angeles-based Ricanati has been baking challah, a traditional Jewish braided bread made for Friday night Sabbath dinner, with all the accompanying habits and prayers. There's no requirement to be Jewish to bake challah, and really any bread-making or other type of intricate cookery could be substituted in fulfilling Ricanati's recommendation that taking a break from life to create something nourishing is a great way to reconnect with one's self, spiritually and mentally, as it was for her. On the surface, it's all about the recipe and 14 steps to fashioning the final product. Yet along the way, there's plenty of advice about the right ingredients to use, questions regarding salt and eggs and health, useful baking tools, and the like. Plus, Ricanati's woven-in stories about her childhood, residency, and medical practice are authentic and touching meanders that lead to her sharing what she's learned and other important life lessons. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)