Relish: My Life in the Kitchen

by Lucy Knisley, Lucy Knisley (Illustrator)

Overview

Lucy Knisley loves food. The daughter of a chef and a gourmet, this talented young cartoonist comes by her obsession honestly. In her forthright, thoughtful, and funny memoir, Lucy traces key episodes in her life thus far, framed by what she was eating at the time and lessons learned about food, cooking, and life. Each chapter is bookended with an illustrated recipe—many of them treasured family dishes, and a few of them Lucy's original inventions.

A welcome read for anyone who ever felt more passion for a sandwich than is strictly speaking proper, Relish is a graphic novel for our time: it invites the reader to celebrate food as a connection to our bodies and a connection to the earth, rather than an enemy, a compulsion, or a consumer product.

A Publishers Weekly Best Children's Book of 2013
An NPR Best Book of 2013

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466827103
Publisher:	First Second
Publication date:	04/02/2013
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	376,802
File size:	54 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Lucy Knisley was born in New York City, raised in Rhinebeck, NY, and educated in Chicago. She has come home to roost in a tiny apartment in Manhattan, where she can be closer to her mom's cooking. Her comics about life, food, travel and her adventures have gained her a devoted audience on the Internet, and she is now doing food comics for the magazine Saveur, who just sent her to Africa. Lucy's first book, French Milk, is a travelogue about a trip to Paris. Relish is her most recent work.

Lucy Knisley is the author and illustrator of beloved graphic novels about memory, identity, food, and family. Her Alex Award-winning graphic novel, Relish: My Life in the Kitchen, tells the story of her childhood steeped in the food industry. It was a New York Times bestseller and has been translated into five languages. Her travelogues (French Milk, An Age of License, and Displacement) and web comic series (Stop Paying Attention) have been lauded by critics, and her combined work has built her a devoted readership for her honest and thoughtful true-life stories. Her recent graphic memoirs include Something New: Tales from a Makeshift Bride.

Editorial Reviews

[Knisley] maps out her emotional associations with her favorite foods…in a breezy clear-line style…Her language, like her drawings, is precise and uncluttered…

The New York Times Book Review - Douglas Wolk

When we eat, we take in more than just sustenance,” writes Knisley (French Milk) in this nostalgic and funny food-centric memoir, and it’s a fitting motto for the book and for anyone who takes even the slightest pleasure in cooking and, more importantly, eating. Having grown up surrounded by delicious food, thanks to her gourmand father and earthy superchef mother, Knisley looks back on her childhood and adolescence through her roving palette and voracious appetite for new tastes and experiences. With each memory Knisley shares, she shows that life, like a good meal, should be savored and that all food—even junk food—is more than “just fuel.” For those uninitiated in the mysterious art of pickling, the nuance of cheese, or making sangria (yes, a couple cocktail recipes appear), Knisley’s candid storytelling, deadpan humor, and clear-line cartooning make the book entirely accessible, extinguishing the pretensions that sometimes predominate the culinary world. Like a giant bowl of spaghetti carbonara or tower of huevos rancheros (recipes included), this is a book that teenagers and parents will savor in equal measure. Ages 15–up. Agent: Holly Bemiss, Susan Rabiner Literary Agency. (Apr.) ¦

Publishers Weekly

“Lucy Knisley's delightful drawings don't just tell great stories, they're a crystal-clear how-to guide to everything worth doing in the kitchen. Step aside, Joy of Cooking.” —Alison Bechdel, author of FunHome

“Lucy Knisley is bringing comics into the kitchen.” —USA Today

“Knisley's candid storytelling, deadpan humor, and clear-line storytelling make the book entirely accessible. . . . like a giant bowl of spaghetti carbonara or a tower of huevos rancheros (recipes included) this is a book that teenagers and parents will savor in equal measure.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“I plan on buying this book for every foodie I know.” —Wired

“Just about everything in this rambling memoir is handled with good cheer, which hints at the positive energy and personal fulfillment Knisley has wrought from her young life in food.” —Booklist

“A grand appreciation for the sheer joy of sharing a meal (and recipe).” —Bookslut

“You're going to savor every page of this yummy graphic memoir.” —Reading Rants

“Readers who are already food lovers are the obvious audience here, but those even those who aren't will have plenty to ruminate on through these coming-of-age shorts.” —BCCB

From the Publisher

Knisley spent her early childhood in New York City with parents who were deeply, passionately into food. After an apparently friendly divorce she and her mother moved upstate, where her mother worked as a caterer and at farm stands, bringing little Lucy along. While her classmates brought cupcakes to school on their birthdays, her mom showed up with a blowtorch and made creme brulee. Knisley carried on the family tradition of finding so much pleasure in preparing and eating food: eating alone, eating with friends, eating in Japan or Italy or Chicago, eating hot dogs from the Papaya King or lavender-scented air at a molecular restaurant. She finds delight in food in all its forms (with the exception of something called Lemonade Chicken her well-intentioned but food-ignorant friend made one night). It's a memoir with no bitterness, a foodie's meditation with no judgment towards those who don't share her interests. Her comics are clear and easy to read, reminiscent of Alison Bechdel or the illustrations in the Moosewood cookbooks. Every page is printed in full color. Has fleeting references to drug use, puberty, and porn (not necessarily combined) but nothing that should scare anyone away. Recipes include chocolate chip cookies, sushi rolls, pickles, sangria, and pasta carbonara. Reviewer: Sara Lorimer

Children's Literature - Sara Lorimer

For most of us, a sudden whiff of something or the notes of a melodic tune are enough to conjure up memories from long ago. For the author of this graphic memoir, it is food that jogs her memory, shapes how she views the world, and comforts her while she is on her life's journey. Inspired by her parents and other family members, Knisley began working around food in her Uncle Pete's store at an early age. After her parent's divorced when she was seven, she moved to the country with her mother, a business woman who grew vegetables, raised chickens, and cooked. It was there that her mother encouraged her to be adventurous, goal-oriented, and generous. Eating, cooking, and serving are featured prominently in the text and drawings. Readers interested in cooking and the fine art of eating will appreciate the recipes and the food-filled anecdotes, such as when Knisley finds croissants in Venice that are so delicious she scoffs down five before she knows it. When she returns to the states, she becomes obsessed with trying to make similar ones that rival those eaten abroad. The book closes with a bonus: an afterword filled with full-color family photos. It is refreshing to see graphic novels with ambitious, conscious females. Just as the author acknowledges that her mother was an exceptional role model, so might young readers. Reviewer: KaaVonia Hinton

VOYA - KaaVonia Hinton