Review: Bite by Bite by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

We all need to eat. Some people experience food as necessary. Others revel in it as more, whether for the taste or the experience of eating a certain thing, or for the memories different foods inspire. Aimee Nezhukumatathil is obviously one of the latter people, as evidenced by her gorgeous collection of essays, each centered on a different food. Some of the foods she discusses are ones I've never eaten. Others are as common to my table as to hers. And each essay made me reflect on the food she was discussing, plumbing my own memories of that specific food or thinking of a food that conjures a similar response in me.

Nezhukumatathil is a beautiful writer and her turns of phrase are as delicious as the foods she's discussing. Most of the foods are just that, a singular food, not a dish or a recipe, although she does discuss where she has eaten each thing, sometimes in context of a larger dish. She weaves the histories of the foods, the people who first discovered or ate them, and the way they were dispersed around the world with very personal reflections on growing up as the American daughter of immigrant parents (a Filipina mother and an Indian father), as a young poet and teacher finding her place in the academic and literary worlds, and as a wife and mother with young, and then teenaged, children. Some of these foods are her heritage, passed down through the generations, and others are newer culinary experiences for her. There are some political moments here, usually tied to identity and to the personal, but they flow easily and organically as the essays unfold. The essays as a whole touch on the full range of emotion but center more on joy and nourishments (or as Nezhukumatathil calls them, jamborees) making this an immensely pleasurable read. Gorgeous full-page color illustrations by Fumi Nakamura show each food or drink discussed, which is helpful and interesting for readers who might be unfamiliar with certain of the foods she mentions. This is a charming, short collection any reader will enjoy consuming "bite by bite."

Review: Strangers by Belle Burden

When the pandemic hit in March 2020, Belle Burden, her husband of twenty years, and two of their three teenaged children retreated to their family home on the Vineyard. Their world was not only safe and insulated, but also generally happy despite the state of the world. Then Belle discovered that her husband was having an affair. Initially he said he wanted to fix their marriage. And then suddenly he didn't, walking away from Belle and their life, including their kids, as if they were strangers he'd never cared for.

This memoir is Burden coming to terms with the story of her marriage, the man she thought she knew, and the one she discovered during their divorce. That she navigated it all without any in-person support (as she refused to lean on her children in order to try and shield them from their father's seeming lack of care for them) because of the pandemic made it both harder and easier in certain ways. She discusses the way she had blithely allowed her husband to have total control of their finances, leaving her in financial ignorance of both their shared money and his own earned income. This is a cautionary tale, even as she acknowledges her great privilege (descendant of the Vanderbilts and famous socialite Babe Paley's granddaughter). Her background and her privilege though, cannot spare her the pain and suffering of the death of her marriage. She even considers whether it, in fact, contributed to the idea that she should just accept her husband's bad behavior as her due. Interestingly, she mentioned in an interview that she ran this book past him before publication and he only requested two changes, one she made and one she didn't.

The writing here is beautiful, incorporating memories of her marriage when it was good (or she thought it was), the raw pain and confusion of the divorce, and her remembrances of her parents' own brief marriage and their subsequent relationships. This is honest and thoughtful and far more grace-filled towards her ex-husband than he probably deserves. Of course, she examines him carefully, but also examines herself just as carefully to try and present as full and truthful a portrait as one of the interested parties possibly can.

Review: Aftertaste by Daria Lavelle

The front cover of this book asks, if you could have one last meal with someone you’ve loved and lost, would you? But this is not the sweet, heartwarming story this query might imply. It is a much harder, darker story than that.

Kostya Duhovny, the only child of Ukrainian immigrant parents, loses his father unexpectedly when he’s 10. This tragic and terrible loss changes him forever. Only months after his father’s death, Kostya has his first “aftertaste,” tasting something he hasn’t eaten, something, a dish, a meal, a drink, that brings with it the potent memory of a lost loved one. Kostya’s first “aftertaste” is a meal associated with his father. And then he starts to have “aftertastes” around other people, including perfect strangers. This gift/curse confuses, frustrates, and alarms him until it eventually mostly recedes into the framework of his life. Personally, he is adrift and floundering, working as a bartender when, one night, a patron comes in at the eleventh hour and tells Kostya to make him a drink. Kostya decides to make the drink he tastes in the “aftertaste” the man is accompanied by. Something magical happens. The “aftertaste” drink summons the man’s lost person for him and eventually a business is born for Kostya, literally invoking ghosts through memories and taste buds. Kostya’s strange talent earns him a girlfriend, a successful livelihood, and a measure of fame. But even as he gets more adept at cooking these memory dishes that conjure the dead, something more sinister is occurring beyond his notice, something that must be reckoned with, no matter what the cost.

This is a book about grief and love and the longing that death cannot conquer. The premise is unique and engaging and every time the reader thinks they know where the book is going, Lavelle turns them around. For reasons unknown to me, I feel shades of Somewhere in Time (the book, not as much the movie) here. The two books share a sensibility somehow. This book takes you on an unexpected journey, with revelation after revelation reframing the characters and the plot as you read on.