"Miriam's Kitchen" is a wonderful melange of memory and mirth, culture and food--a Jewish "Like Water for Chocolate". At the core is the author's mother-in-law, Miriam, a Holocaust survivor who passionately carries out the traditions she learned as a girl. "Miriam's Kitchen" is an exhilaratingly sensuous book that makes you hunger for things of the spirit as well as for old-fashioned food on a plate.
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"Miriam's Kitchen" is a wonderful melange of memory and mirth, culture and food--a Jewish "Like Water for Chocolate". At the core is the author's mother-in-law, Miriam, a Holocaust survivor who passionately carries out the traditions she learned as a girl. "Miriam's Kitchen" is an exhilaratingly sensuous book that makes you hunger for things of the spirit as well as for old-fashioned food on a plate.
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Seller's Description:
First Edition, first printing with full number line in fine / like new condition. The dust jacket is clean and undamaged. The dust jacket is clipped. Pages are clean. Boards are solid, and spine is square and tight. No remainder mark. All items guaranteed, and a portion of each sale supports social programs in Los Angeles. Ships from CA.
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Seller's Description:
Fine in Fine jacket. Book A personal memoir of a girl learning Yiddish-Jewish cookery lessons from her mother-in-law, at the same time absorbing other aspects of Jewish culture while learning her in-law's life story and experiences in wartime Europe, much more; contains index. Hardcover with dust jacket, 370pp. A beautiful, mint copy, unused and unread. Rare. Size: 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall.
Miriam's Kitchen is a warm memoir about the family history of the author, focusing on her mother-in-law Miriam, a Polish survivor of the holocaust. In Miriam's kitchen, the author learns how to prepare kosher meals like her mother-in-law, while struggling with her own decision of whether or not to make HER kitchen kosher, honoring her ancestors. The author also includes the recipes she learns in her mother-in-law's kitchen, so the book is a well-crafted memoir, the author's struggle for her Jewish identity, and a cache of savored and savory recipes.
Some of the chapters are brief enough to be short stories themselves, allowing the "short story" to stand alone as a wonderful tidbit of Jewish kitchen lore, as in the chapter on baked apples. Elizabeth Ehrlich also uses wonderfully descriptive language, so I felt I was in the kitchen with her and Miriam. Some of the passages are very touching, especially those her mother-in-law describes about her life in Poland during WWII.
As an avid cook and reader, a writer, and a Jew, I found the book inspiring, touching, and memorable. The library copy I borrowed has been exchanged for my own copy to reread and mark the passages I love and to try dome of the recipes in my own kitchen.
