A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table

Customer Reviews:

At Molly's table

By Jennifer Gingras "8junebugs" - February 26, 2009

I have only made it up through the coconut macaroons, and I have already cried.

Twice.

I preordered this book, being a longtime Orangette reader with unshaken trust in Molly's palate. The combination of ingredients in her Buchons Au Thons alone changed the way I consider food, flavor, and a can of tuna.

More than that, Molly writes about food the way I feel about food -- simple meals are intertwined with memories and people and how we become who and what we are. Even if I someday manage a perfect souffle, I will still crave my mom's egg salad sandwiches, white bread only, on Sundays in July.

I tend to fall into Nigella Lawson books -- she makes cooking look SO sexy and fun -- but the domestic goddess is missing an accessibility Molly manages easily. Her voice and the sometimes heart-rendingly personal stories she tells with each recipe really do bring you to her kitchen table. And then they give you a cookie.

From its simple,... read more

Like a good meal....

By N. Pearce - March 1, 2009

I had to save a little for leftovers. Have you ever had a dinner so good you had to save a little bit at the end of the meal just so you could have a little left to savor the next day? Well, this was Molly's book. I stayed up until 1 a.m. reading this book and when I was finally to the last chapter I just couldn't take that it was going to be over. This morning I got up and made coffee and the Scones from the recipe in A Homemade Life, and sat down to savor the last chapter and the scones. It was perfect both the book and the scones. The scones may very well be the best I have ever made and that says a lot considering I have written about a dozen blog posts related to finding the perfect scone. Really, I'm so glad for Orangette as I know the story does not have to end. I was only a mild follower of the blog before this book, now I want to go back and read every post. All the recipes look amazing as well.

Recipes are a bonus

By B. Shortt - March 1, 2009

I expected this book to be about food, since the aurhor's blog, Orangette, is my favorite among several I read, and a number of the recipes I have tried, from granola to boiled kale (neither are included in this book, but are available on the Orangette site), now make regular appearances on our table.
As delicious as the recipes are, however, this is not primarily a cookbook. The recipes are a bonus feature in as lovely a book of essays as I remember reading in--well, I think--ever. I don't much like essays, usually, but then I didn't think I'd like boiled kale either, and we're having that once a week now. If you skip the essays and only make the recipes, you'll miss the best of the feast.
Ms. Wizenberg's stories of finding her place have obviously been carefully crafted, with deft imagery, but they are also page-turners. You can't wait to see how each little episode ends, even though you know it ends with a recipe and the subject matter is familiar to us all.
She... read more