RaveSan Francisco ChronicleThe splendidly meandering narrative reads like a long dinner party with plenty of wine as Madison tells of cooking for M.F.K. Fisher’s birthday and working with Mark Miller, Richard Olney, David Tanis, Judy Rodgers and Waters, with whom she remains great friends ... Madison’s personal account of the vegetarian movement, told in her gentle, engaging voice, is a collection of salient moments in a well-lived life.
Benjamin Lorr
RaveSan Francisco ChronicleIn the tradition of literary muckrakers, Benjamin Lorr’s The Secret Life of Groceries exposes the true cost of cheap food. Weaving history, statistics, experiences and interviews, Lorr investigates the sourcing, production, distribution and sales of retail food products. The most compelling chapters focus on the people tethered to an industry that maintains margins of 1.5% as food prices have fallen nearly three-fourths over the past century ... Extensive footnotes with quirky asides, social commentary and resources are a break from so much disturbing and often hilarious information, and the many hard truths are relayed with empathy ... Every grocery store shopper is linked to this chain; no reader of this ambitious book will enter a store the same.
Dominique Crenn
RaveThe San Francisco Chronicle...confidence and bravado resonate throughout Crenn’s high-spirited memoir ... Crenn’s story is one of accomplishment, empowerment, entrepreneurship and resilience ... Defying convention, she crafts her tasting menus not as lists of dishes, but as poems to evoke waves of emotion ... The book is laced with stories of Crenn’s physical strength and courage as she recovers from a devastating knee injury, then breast cancer, and advocates for gender equity and human rights ... Straightforward and candid and written in spare, warm prose (credit to co-author Emma Brockes), this memoir provides a glimpse into an extraordinary artist who lives fully on her own inspiring terms.
Phyllis Grant
RaveThe San Francisco ChronicleIn dynamic, poetic prose, Grant relays the contours of her life ... It’s with the same attention and precision that Grant plucks and places her words. The vignettes in this lean collection are powerful, presented with plenty of white space between chapters, a pause to savor what is told and what is left unsaid ... In the final section, Grant provides recipes with wit and warmth ... Brimming with passion, tragedy and love, this slim volume delights, enlightens and satisfies.
