Entertaining Disasters

Entertaining Disasters, by Nancy Spiller.

Garlic made us interesting, if only to ourselves, set us apart from our neighbors whose houses held no special odors, were nothing more than common shelter for their benign, boring, blank breath. And when this mother became another mother and stopped making her garlic dip and her garlic bread, stopped putting out the damask tablecloth and using the good crystal and china, we remembered her garlic recipes, made them and tasted them in our minds.

This book was interesting in that at the end of each chapter, a recipe was revealed. In addition, the book was mainly conversation-less, leaving us only with the main character's "voice," who was both dry and witty, and would be someone I'd want to be friends with if she was real. She tells us about her childhood and how food was a major part of it, and how that then changed when her mother slowly went nutsy; and how now, she is an established food writer, but most of her parties that she has written about are fake.

The end of the book slows down a bit, but other than that, it moves steadily throughout.

4 stars out of 5.