Valentine’s Day Roundup: Five Hearty Books About Food and Love
Valentine’s Day Roundup: Five Hearty Books About Food and Love
February 14th is reserved for candy hearts, dark chocolate, a dozen red roses, and declarations of love. However, for this roundup, I gathered together a hearty list of reads more satisfying than candy and flowers. From memoirs about marriage and recipes to novels about cooking and courting, this roundup will leave you hungry for more books about food and love.
1. The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister (272 pages)
Image via Barnes & Noble
As a young girl, Lillian learned how to cook as an act of love for her mother. Now as a grown woman and restaurant owner, she takes what she’s learned to host Monday night cooking classes. Her most recent class is a group of eight strangers who become friends over the course of the program. Some of the participants include Carl and Helen, a sweet older couple with a history none of their classmates would suspect; Chloe, a self-conscious young girl trying to find a place to belong; and Atonia, an Italian kitchen designer continuing to adjust to life in the States. As all of their individual lives cross paths each Monday night, the students learn lessons about not only the ingredients essential to cooking but those essential to love and friendship.
Why You Should Read It
The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister is the comfort food of books and an essential read for anyone looking to fill up on beautiful descriptions of food and sweet stories of love and friendship. With each chapter, Bauermeister dives into the story of a different character while keeping their lives and the plotline connected through their time spent cooking together on Monday evenings. If you’re like me, you’ll finish the book unable to pick a favourite character, each so unique and lovable with their own struggles and joys. I closed the back cover feeling content as if having finished a homecooked meal shared with loved ones.
Hearty Factor
5/5 Brookie Stars
2. The Gastronomy of Marriage: A Memoir of Food and Love by Michelle Maisto (256 pages)
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Cooking is the love language between Michelle and Rich in this memoir about the couple’s courtship and life leading up to their marriage. Set against the backdrop of bustling New York, Michelle describes fears of marriage, the deep connection she shares with her unexpected choice of a husband, her enjoyment of cooking, and how she expresses love through time spent in the kitchen. From wedding planning and kitchen duty compromises to differing heritages and taste pallets, Michelle indulges her readers with a tale of good food and good love.
Why You Should Read It
Maisto makes it easy to savour the pages of her memoir with vivid descriptions of food, honest portrayals of marriage and family relationships, and candid confessions about her own fears of commitment and losing her sense of self. After finishing this read, you’ll be able to walk away with a few recipes for the kitchen and some advice for love and life.
Hearty Factor
4/5 Brookie Stars
3. The Simplicity of Cider by Amy E. Reichert (336 pages)
Image via Barnes & Noble
The Lund’s fifth-generation apple orchard in Door County, WI is struggling to stay afloat, but Sanna Lund will do anything to keep this land and business she loves from falling apart. At least, she thinks so, but this growing season throws one curveball after another including one in the shape of father and son, Isaac and Sebastion (Bass) Banks. After having road-tripped from California to escape his troubled wife, Isaac takes a seasonal job with the Lunds and settles himself and Bass into the slow, charming pace of a Midwestern summer. As Sanna fights to save her family’s orchard and Isaac fights to save his son from any pain, they find unexpected comfort in each other. But when each of their own heartbreak catches up with them, both must decide what’s worth letting go of and what’s worth holding onto.
Why You Should Read It
The Simplicity of Cider by Amy E. Reichert is a read as sweet and simple as its title. A Midwesterner myself, I have a soft spot for the setting of this book, but regardless of where you’re from, you’ll easily fall in love with the Lund’s apple orchard and the relationships formed between Sanna, Isaac, and Bass. While the character interactions can feel a bit corny at times, this is the perfect read if you’re looking for a feel-good story about how to hold on to the things and people we love most.
Hearty Factor
3/5 Brookie Stars
4. The Dirty Life: A Memoir about Farming, Food, and Love by Kristin Kimball (304 pages)
Image via Barnes & Noble
Kristin Kimball is a New York City journalist on assignment to interview a young upstate farmer named Mark. While her visits with Mark begin as work, she soon upends her city life to move with him to a 500-acre farm near Lake Champlain. At Essex Farm, they cultivate their dream of growing everything needed to feed a community including beef, pork, chicken, eggs, milk, maple syrup, grains, fruits, and vegetables. As they commit themselves to their land and producing sustainable food, they also begin planning a fall wedding to commit themselves to each other. In this life she never anticipated for herself, Kristin learns all about the discipline and hope needed to make farming and love work and the fulfillment that comes from both when they do.
Why You Should Read It
I pulled this memoir off the discount table at Barnes and Noble five-ish years ago and paid approximately three dollars for it. To this day, it remains one of my favourite books (it’s the one I chose for my BooknBrunch bio). Because Kimball was new to farming, her storytelling about her immersion into this lifestyle and her growing relationship with Mark allows you to feel as though you’re experiencing the challenges and joys of farming and falling in love right alongside her. The sentiment you’ll take away from this memoir is best described by a quote Kimball gives us: “…a bowl of beans, rest for tired bones. These things are reasonable roots for a life, not just its window dressing. If you can tire your own bones while growing the beans, so much the better for you.”
Hearty Factor
5/5 Brookie Stars
5. Good Husbandry: Growing Food, Love and Family on Essex Farm by Kristin Kimball
Image via Barnes & Noble
In her first book, The Dirty Life, Kimball tells of her experience falling in love with her husband and the challenging yet rewarding lifestyle of growing food. In this second memoir, Kimball shares the hardships that come with both marriage and farming. The couple’s vows to each other and their land are tested when faced with unpredictable weather, financial concerns, and injury. Amidst so much uncertainty, Kimball is reminded in big and small ways of the effort, grace, and strength needed to commit to the life and love she chose.
Why You Should Read It
I had to include the sequel of my favourite book because Kimball managed to enchant me once again with more of her story in Good Husbandry. Kimball and her husband’s connection to land and food are just as infectious in this novel, but she asks readers to dig even deeper. As she shares about life beyond happily-ever-after, she’ll help you remember that the “happily” part is one we must choose to foster and grow even in the harshest of conditions.
Hearty Factor
4/5 Brookie Stars
Did you fall in love with our roundup? Pick up one of these books and get your fill of love and food this Valentine’s Day. Let us know what you thought of these hearty reads by emailing us here!
Taylor Stawecki is a 20-something Michigander with a love for the great outdoors and written word. She spends her weekdays working for a digital marketing company and as a freelance copywriter. In her free time, you can find her reading, writing poetry, running, watching a Grey’s Anatomy rerun, or spending time with her family and friends. As an old soul, she enjoys collecting salt and pepper shakers and cuddling up in oversized sweaters.
