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(More customer reviews)Alone in the Kitchen With An Eggplant is a tribute not only to food, but to the act of eating and preparing it, the savoring of a specific meal, or simply the privacy to enjoy it. With a range of writers, some known for food writing (M.F.K. Fisher, Marcella Hazan, Amanda Hesser) and fiction writers (Jami Attenberg, Dan Chaon, Ann Patchett) covering basic to fancier dishes, it's got something for everyone, even the non-foodies. For some of the authors, eating alone can be, well, lonely, and I'm glad this perspective was included, while for others, such as Holly Hughes in "Luxury," because of the constant demands of her kids ("Yuck, Mom, why is the rice so slimy?" "Mom, this has boogers in it."), eating alone is a treasured treat. She has meals she only eats alone, like liver, because she "couldn't bear it if" her kids spit it out.
The authors who tackle a specific food do so with an urgency bordering on lust, and their unusual choices (most contributors aren't choosing traditional comfort foods here like macaroni and cheese or pizza, or, okay, maybe those are just mine) may make you reconsider certain foods. Haruki Murakami eats spaghetti for a year, "as if cooking spaghetti were an act of revenge," and his preference for eating it alone is balanced with the intrusion of a phone call that tears him away from his favorite meal. Phoebe Nobles eats asparagus every day for two months in her quest to become an "asparagus superhero." Erin Ergenbright shares a tale from the other side of the spectrum, as an observer of a solo female diner (aka "NGL," No Garlic Lady") at the Portland restaurant where she waits tables, clarklewis. Her tricky relationship with this diner, as well as her own (mis)adventures in the world of food, are interspersed and contrasted and, by the end, made me want to dine at clarklewis, alone or otherwise.
I especially enjoyed Laura Dave's humorous yet very real rules on "How To Cook in a New York Apartment" ("Don't cook that which leaves its smell behind" is #1) and what could be considered its counterpoint, Courtney Eldridge's biting "Thanks But No Thanks," in which she documents how her foodie ex-husband and his food critic mother made the act of eating almost a chore (but did introduce her to sushi so delicious "it was all I could do, biting my tongue, to keep a postcoital I love you from escaping my lips." Even so, her husband's class bias and food snobbery drive a wedge between them, and Eldridge's straightforward style is especially welcome.
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