Women Who Eat

More than just great food writing, this long-overdue rebuttal to the notion that all women are on a diet celebrates food with grace, wit, and gusto. Women are reclaiming their pots and pans, but it’s a new era in the kitchen. Today’s generation of women is putting a fresh spin on the “joy of cooking”—and eating and entertaining.
Women both in and out of the culinary profession share their stories about the many ways food shapes and enhances their lives. New York Times columnist Amanda Hesser praises the joys of simple food. Kate Sekules discusses the importance of having a restaurant where you are known. Michelle Tea describes her working-class Polish family’s meals as “tripe, kielbasa, shellfish and beer.” One woman owns up to her culinary ineptitude in an era when being a gourmet cook is all the rage; another links her love for Carvel soft-serve ice cream to her childhood in Trinidad. One woman writes about baking school, another about making sauerkraut with her grandmother, and another about the food in her favorite books of her childhood. This illuminating look at food today, with generous helpings of great prose, is that all too rare thing: a food positive book by women.