If drinking too much is the route to spending time in the kitchen and beyond with Alice Waters, Marion Cunningham, Ruth Reichl, Edna Lewis, Leah Chase, Rachel Ray, Marcella Hazan and one’s own mother then bring on the hangover. Kim Severson does just this but without the headache in her new memoir, Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life.
Reading to Understand Why We Are the Way We Are
Spoon Fed opens with the lines, “Your life lessons might look a little different from mine. The cadence of everyone’s childhood and coming of age is unique. But I venture that we could sit down at a kitchen table and find that parts of our paths look just the same. Like me, you learned from people who navigated life before you and then took the time to tell you how they did it.” These sentences are why we read memoirs – to relate, to learn, to understand, to connect, and to feel a part of something larger than ourselves. Severson’s memoir accomplishes this and whets our appetite for more from her pen.
Ms. Severson sheds every layer of her skin through the pages of her memoir. We learn about her childhood and role within her family today. She writes lovingly of her relationship with partner Katia, and their daughter Sammy. Her prose is emotional and eloquent and drives the reader to turn the page – wondering whom will Kim meet next.
Chefs as Mentors and Friends
Foodies among us will have no doubt read memoirs and biographies of the eight chefs that come to Severson’s rescue. In Spoon Fed these women are lovingly stripped of whatever pretensions the public may have ascribed to them much like Ms. Severson had when she deemed Ruth Reichl the, “popular girl.” Each woman is in turn made 100% human and in turn contributes to the rebuilding of Severson’s life.
Ms. Severson shares her "little life lesson" in the introduction, "Giving someone a taste of something delicious at exactly the right moment is a fail-safe way to start a good relationship." Who could argue with that?
James Beard Award-Winning Reporter Pens Memoir
A food writer for the New York Times since 2004, Ms. Severson previously was the food writer and editor at the San Francisco Chronicle where she received four James Beard Awards and a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism. Born in Wisconsin, she currently resides in Brooklyn with her partner Katia Hetter and their two-year old daughter Sammy.
Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Save My Life
By Kim Severson
Riverhead Books
ISBN: 978-1-59448-757-6
Jacket Design: Christopher Tobias
Author Photo: Soo-Jeong Kang
Dindy Yokel - Freelance writer Dindy Yokel specializes in luxury travel, food & wine, culture, fine arts, marketing, public relations and advertising. ...
