Take a girl with an iffy start in life. Mix in wanderlust and cooking. And lots of books. Add a dollop of yearning for home and belonging. Knead in a pinch of self-discovery. Let rise and ripen. The result is Cynthia D. Bertelsen’s Stoves & Suitcases: Searching for Home in the World’s Kitchens, a reflective … More “Stoves & Suitcases” Book Trailer!
In these days of plague, I’ve spent much time thinking about the past. Not so much my own past as that of England. The runaway popularity of “Downton Abbey” and the resurgence of interest in Jane Austen contributed to a new rabbit hole I’m climbing down. And maybe too a little curiosity about the Black … More Petits Propos Culinaires, an Oft-Overlooked and Unobtainable Tool Now Available in Digital
British author Genevieve Jenner‘s debut collection of food-related short stories – Chocolate Cake for Imaginary Lives (Deixis Press, March 2022) – promises a delectable and unusual reading experience for those seeking tales of the intersection of food and life. Jenner offers up 38 stories, some taking as long to read as mixing dry ingredients together, … More Chocolate Cake for Imaginary Lives: Genevieve Jenner’s Brilliant Short Story Collection
I just learned that Stoves & Suitcases won Best in the USA for Food Writing for 2022, given by the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, under the auspices of Edouard Cointreau, a member of the Cointreau family of French liqueur producers. Scroll to page 32 of this .pdf to see the other winners in this category.
I yanked the last of the two dozen buttermilk-potato rolls from the baking sheet, yelping a little as the steaming, fluffy bread burned my fingers. The cornbread for the cornbread dressing cooled on a rack across the kitchen. And my spiced cranberry sauce gleamed, ruby-red under the lights I’d just installed under the cabinets. Thanksgiving. … More Retro Thanksgiving: Musings Amid Vintage Menus
An interesting thing happened to me today. I ran into a person who knows me, a person who is also a writer. And they said the darnedest thing. Something about me just writing about food. As if it were something lesser than writing a novel or whatever. Actually, I have written a novel. In the … More Writing about Food IS Writing
Noted food historian, Cynthia D. Bertelsen’s new book, Stoves & Suitcases: Searching for Home in the World’s Kitchens, knocks one out of the ballpark. Not since Jessica B. Harris’ s My Soul Looks Back has a book captured me so completely, cover-to-cover. I read it in a day. In this high-caliber travelogue of tastes, flavors, … More Stoves & Suitcases, a Review by Leo Racicot
It was Julia Child‘s favorite outdoor market in Paris. La Mouffe. Or rue Mouffetard, in the 5th arrondisement. Ancient street, cobblestone-strewn. Romans trod there, and marched, too. In the third century, Legionnaires laid the first rock in the town they called Lutetia Parisiorum. And that thoroughfare stretched all the way to Rome via the modern … More La Mouffe
CYNTHIA D. BERTELSEN 
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