Toast

Slater's is a coming-of-age story, both in terms of his childhood and his eventual profession. Slater reads as he writes, beautifully, just as the right wine graces a marvelous meal. His British accent delights as he relates the pleasures of childhood toast, adolescent sweets, and grown-up cookery at London's Savoy Hotel. Further, he knows when to underwrite and when to gloriously overwrite. His is a bittersweet account of life with a loving mother, but a poor cook, who is battling the asthma that will take her life, and a loving but distant father. Listening to this memoir revisits one's memories of food (good and awful) and even, perhaps, a coming to terms with one's own childhood memories. L.C. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine