Blue Plate Special: An Autobiography of My Appetites - Hardcover

Christensen, Kate

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385536267 ISBN 13: 9780385536264

Publisher: Doubleday, 2013

Synopsis

From acclaimed novelist Kate Christensen, Blue Plate Special is a mouthwatering literary memoir about an unusual upbringing and the long, winding path to happiness.

“To taste fully is to live fully.” For Kate Christensen, food and eating have always been powerful connectors to self and world—“a subterranean conduit to sensuality, memory, desire.” Her appetites run deep; in her own words, she spent much of her life as “a hungry, lonely, wild animal looking for happiness and stability.” Now, having found them at last, in this passionate feast of a memoir she reflects upon her journey of innocence lost and wisdom gained, mistakes made and lessons learned, and hearts broken and mended.
In the tradition of M. F. K. Fisher, Laurie Colwin, and Ruth Reichl, Blue Plate Special is a narrative in which food—eating it, cooking it, reflecting on it—becomes the vehicle for unpacking a life. Christensen explores her history of hunger—not just for food but for love and confidence and a sense of belonging—with a profound honesty, starting with her unorthodox childhood in 1960s Berkeley as the daughter of a mercurial legal activist who ruled the house with his fists. After a whirlwind adolescent awakening, Christensen strikes out to chart her own destiny within the literary world and the world of men, both equally alluring and dangerous. Food of all kinds, from Ho Hos to haute cuisine, remains an evocative constant throughout, not just as sustenance but as a realm of experience unto itself, always reflective of what is going on in her life. She unearths memories—sometimes joyful, sometimes painful—of the love between mother and daughter, sister and sister, and husband and wife, and of the times when the bonds of love were broken. Food sustains her as she endures the pain of these ruptures and fuels her determination not to settle for anything less than the love and contentment for which she’s always yearned.
The physical and emotional sensuality that defines Christensen’s fiction resonates throughout the pages of Blue Plate Special. A vibrant celebration of life in all its truth and complexity, this book is about embracing the world through the transformative power of food: it’s about listening to your appetites, about having faith, and about learning what is worth holding on to and what is not.

About this title

Review:

"A gorgeously written, boldly honest memoir. . . . Full of disarming humor and a rich appetite, both for the meals whose recipes dot the chapters and for life itself."
--The Boston Globe

"Christensen has deftly tucked food into every scenario, every relationship and every crossroads. . . . A homey and vivid portrait of a woman who has dedicated herself to sitting in a room--sometimes of her own--and writing good books, including this one."
--The Wall Street Journal

"A paean to cooking and food, from the homey to the haute. . . . [A] blend of personal and social history."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Christensen summons to mind a young, sexy Julia Child who mixes things with her hands and ends up with sauce on her chin."
--Elle

"A fine case for life's simplest pleasures--soul-satisfying sustenance shared with a soulmate."
--The Washington Post

"Picking up Blue Plate Special is a little like having Kate Christensen sit down next to you in a bar and hearing her life story. . . . In a bar, you wouldn't get her recipes, however. They appear in the book and are built for comfort, from the Bachelorette Puttanesca to the Dark Night of the Soul Soup."
-- Los Angeles Times

"An inspiring and refreshing memoir that should whet the reader's appetite to seek out the rest of [Christensen's] oeuvre."
--The Miami Herald

"The memoir of an utterly original thinker, a free-spirited gourmand, and a great American writer. [Blue Plate Special] an expert guide on inspiration, ingenuity, heartbreak, buoyancy, home, love, family, screwing up, bouncing back, and perfecting the bacon-cheddar biscuit."
--Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl, Dark Places, and Sharp Objects

"[A] poignant, delicious first memoir. . . . A delightful book that leaves you hungering for more."
-- People Magazine

"Christensen . . . brings a real sense of enchantment to her food writing. . . . She is both sensual and wickedly observant, a hard combination to pull off."
--NPR

"A breathtaking book, sensuously written, emotionally generous, and decadent as a bowl of macaroni and cheese."
--Jami Attenberg, author of The Middlesteins

"A banquet of sorts, with a surfeit of flavors. Christensen eats for all of us, and writes about food at the intersection of everything that matters. . . . [A] fierce, big-hearted memoir."
--Portland Press Herald

"A moving feast of memory, a repast of the past. . . . [Christensen's] clean prose is sprinkled with witty phrases and wry observations. . . . An honest portrayal of the forces that have shaped her: love and loss; joy and pain; trust and despondency."
--Christian Science Monitor

"Warm, wise, earthy, funny, honest, haunting, and bighearted. . . . If you're crazy about M.F.K Fisher and Laurie Colwin, you will be crazy for this book, too. There's not a single empty calorie here: every morsel is both delicious and nourishing."
--Rosie Schaap, author of Drinking With Men

"Christensen lifts her story toward something bigger, something signifying. She looks up and glances across her page. I see you, she says. And we feel seen."
--The Millions
"A banquet of a book about eating, loving, and overcoming, to be devoured as fast as one's fingers can turn the pages."
--Cathi Hanauer, author of Gone and Sweet Ruin, and editor of The Bitch in the House

"A novelist's deliciously engrossing exploration of her life through the two major passions that have defined it: food and writing. . . . A Rabelaisian celebration of appetite, complete with savory recipes, that genuinely satisfies."
-- Kirkus Reviews (starred)

"Christensen writes with savory, home-cooked clarity as she digs deeply into the pleasures and dangers of food, charting the culinary fads of the 1960s on as well as changes to women's lives while zestfully telling intimate, harrowing, and hilarious tales of appetites corrosive and nourishing."
-- Booklist

About the Author:

KATE CHRISTENSEN is the author of six previous novels, most recently The Astral. The Great Man won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award. She has published reviews and essays in numerous publications, most recently the New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, O, Elle, and Gilt Taste. She writes an occasional drinks column for The Wall Street Journal called "With a Twist." Her blog can be accessed at: http://katechristensen.wordpress.com

About this edition

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0385536267
• ISBN 13: 9780385536264
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 353