Blue Plate Special: An Autobiography of My Appetites

Summary (from the publisher): "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 must 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, reflectin 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 the 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 Hos 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 those 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 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.

Review: I won this book as a giveaway on Goodreads through Doubleday. 

I do feel as if I'm cheating a bit reading Christensen's memoir before reading any of her other works, since she is best known for six novels that proceed this, her first non-fiction work. Blue Plate Special is a memoir of Christensen's life from childhood through present day, which uses food as a central theme and unifier. Kate Christensen, who was called by her first name, Laurie, growing up, was raised in Berkeley  and later Arizona. Her mother raised Laurie and her two sisters largely as a single mother after leaving her abusive husband. From childhood, Laurie was creative and loved to read, write, and eat large quantities of homemade food. From adolescence on, her life has been very nomadic, and filled with writing, food, and a turbulent love life. 

I was reeled in to Christensen's story from the very first page, where a two year old Laurie is eating a breakfast of soft-boiled eggs and toast when her mother innocently asks her father for help before he leaves for work: "My father paused in the kitchen doorway, looking back at us all at the table. Something seemed to snap in his head. Instead of either walking out or staying to help my mother, he leaped at her and began punching her in a silent knot of rage" (9). Christensen's writing is compelling and frank. She unabashedly illuminates both faults of herself and others and keeps the reader's attention with her intriguing life story. I love the image Christensen paints of her life from hitchhiking through Europe to life in New York City. 

Although I loved this book, I felt like the summary and title oversells the role food plays in this book. Although this memoir does include many references to food, it is not a book about food. Rather, Christensen uses the memory of the first time she ate a particular food or what dish she was eating on repeat at a particular time in her life (such as the bean burritos she made constantly while in college) as a jumping off point to unpack memories and describes her life at a particular point. Eating and preparing food is a great hobby and love of Christensen, and as such, they must figure as a large theme in her memoir. However, anyone reading this book expecting a heavy and definitive look at food will be disappointed. I did enjoy that each part of the book ended with a few of the author's favorite recipes. My favorite part of this is that she included a description of why the recipe is important to her or when she used to eat it, such as minestrone soup. Christensen says she "would throw this quick, cheap, easy soup together on cold nights after I got home from my temp jobs" (257). Having a personal connection to each recipe added depth, and certainly made me curious to try her recipes. 

Though food is only one of many interests in Christensen's life as described in her memoir, the epigraph by M.K. Fisher sums up her life's relationship to food: "Often the place and time help make a food what it becomes, even more than the food itself."

Stars: 4