Life from Scratch

January 5, 2015
Martin, a food writer and blogger, spent 195 weeks cooking meals from every country of the world. But the most memorable moments in this spirited narrative take place in the many weeks before those 195, and they have surprisingly little to do with food. The department of social services hovered around Martin’s childhood: her father was absent, her home was so cramped that the kitchen doubled as the living room, and her mother, as people said, was “a troublemaker.” When Martin was a pre-teen, her mother sent her and her brother Michael to live with family friends. Soon thereafter, Michael killed himself. The author made her way to the Culinary Institute of America, as she recounts without self-pity, and then to the cooking project that launched this memoir. Food had long provided the few happy moments in Martin’s life. She recalls her mother’s determination to save their scarce money to buy ingredients for a special cake, and how Martin asked her to “start cooking the world all over again” when they ate their last meal of the 195-week trip, from Zimbabwe. These moments may not be enough to satiate the appetite of foodie readers who are looking for lush bite-by-bite writing, but there is plenty here to engross memoir lovers. Agent Lisa DiMona, Writers House.