The Way to a Woman's Heart is through her Stomach?

'The Recipe Club: A Novel About Food and Friendship'
By: Andrea Israel and Nancy Garfinkel


Format: Paperback
Published: Harper; Sept. 2010
Pages: 352


Synopsis: Loyalty, loss, and the ties that bind: These are the ingredients of The Recipe Club, a “novel cookbook” that combines an authentic story of friendship with more than eighty delicious recipes.
Lifelong friends Lilly and Val are united as much by their differences as by their similarities. In childhood, “LillyPad” and “ValPal” form an exclusive two-person club, writing intimate letters in which they share hopes, fears, deepest secrets . . . and recipes—from Lilly’s “Lovelorn Lasagna” to Valerie’s “Forgiveness Tapenade.” The Recipe Club sustains Lilly and Val’s bond across the decades: through the challenges of independence, the joys and heartbreaks of first love, and the emotional complexities of family relationships, identity, mortality, and goals deferred—until the fateful day when an act of kindness becomes an unforgivable betrayal.


My Take: I was really excited to be able to read this book. I love a book that integrates the kitchen in some sense. If it's set in a cooking school, if it's a woman finding her way in life by escaping her current one and becoming a cook in some far off land, or in this new twist, two childhood friends exchanging letters with recipes, I thought for sure I would love it. Basically if a book involves food as some integral element then they have me hooked because I love food and am always planning my next meal. My latest read however was not quite the case for me.


Our two heroines are the best of friends in children and we meet them via email as adults when something in their friendship has clearly gone awry. Valerie and Lilly have, at some point, had a major rift. It is up to us to figure it out through going back in time with them to their childhood and the formation of 'The Recipe Club'. As adults they have grown apart and moved on from each other, which so often happens with our childhood friends but a death in the family has made them want to reconnect. However it doesn't go smoothly.


Cut to their childhood. Val is the straitlaced, pleaser child wanting to get good grades and not mess around with boys. Lilly the more adventurous type - not caring so much what her parents think, or caring so much and just aching for attention that she'll do anything so extreme just hoping they'll notice. At any rate these polar opposites are epistolary friends throughout their childhood, exchanging letters and recipes. There are conversations offline but we don't get them. We have to piece what is happening as they grow up through these which works great. The letters are often laced with catty remarks as teenage girls are want to do but in the end you can see the girls are tied by a bond for each other. This would have been fine for me. A story about two girlfriends, bumbling their way through childhood and those awkward teenage years. Normal stuff.


Here's what didn't work for me. These women were obsessed with their parents! Now I get it. I love my family, I talk to them all the time. As a child, things at home were not always orderly and awesome and neither is the home life for these two girls. Regardless, these girls/teenagers/adults would rather spend more time obsessing about their parents lives then their own. Not to be harsh but what teenager wants to spend hours upon hours talking about her parents with the other teenager rather than boys/clothes/where to get alcohol/anything but your parents! No matter how involved in your life they are, I found this really bizarre. And then yes, there was the rift.  Twenty years later it was still the parents fault. Oh sweet baby Jesus, you are adults! Stop blaming your parents for everything. 


I know that a lot of people loved this book. I read it, I liked it. I liked the recipe integration and I liked aspects of it but there were some aspects of it that really got under my skin obviously and I just wanted to share my point of view.


Please note that the authors will be interviewed by Book Club Girl on Blog Talk Radio on 11/3 at 7pm ET, so tune in to hear it! Here's the link: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/book-club-girl/2010/11/03/andrea-israel-nancy-garfinkel-discuss-the-recipe-c.

For other opinions about this book here's the full TLC Book Tour schedule:

Wednesday, September 29th: Books Like Breathing
Thursday, September 30th: Bookstack
Tuesday, October 5th: Hospitable Pursuits
Wednesday, October 6th: Reviews from the Heart
Thursday, October 7th: Chaotic Compendiums
Monday, October 11th: Book Addiction
Tuesday, October 12th: Amused By Books
Wednesday, October 13th: Tales of a Capricious Reader
Thursday, October 14th: In the Next Room
Tuesday, October 19th: Chefdruck Musings
Wednesday, October 20th: Book Reviews by Bookluvr81
Thursday, October 21st: Café of Dreams
Wednesday, October 27th: Bloggin’ ‘Bout Books



(Thank you so much to TLC Book Tours for sending me this book)