The Kitchen Congregation: Gatherings at the Hearth Book

At the risk of sounding sexist, it's impossible to imagine a man writing this book. Nora Seton's warm, savoury memoir is unmistakably female in its blend of forthright physical details, painstaking analysis of intricate personal relations and intellectual musings. In this, the author mirrors her beloved mother, novelist Cynthia Propper Seton: "The human spirit required complications, she said, places to go and not go, ascent and descent, stone walls and smooth paths to organise itself. She explained all this while peeling carrots." Writing with downright elegance that always delivers the unexpected phrase or insight, Seton explores the kitchen's meaning for women as the centre of the home--the place where friends gather to drink coffee and share secrets, where children stand on overturned salad bowls to reach knives, where the evening news is absorbed while drinking wine and chopping onions. Seton's memories of her mother's slow death from cancer and the stillbirth of her first child are poignant but never depressing, because she conveys such a palpable sense of life as a process of experiences that may wound or rejoice but always enrich the soul. --Wendy SmithRead More