The Cassoulet Saved Our Marriage: True Tales of Food, Family, and How We Learn to Eat

by Caroline M. Grant (Editor), Lisa Catherine Harper (Editor)

Overview

Without mantras or manifestos, 29 writers serve up sharp, sweet, and candid memories; salty irreverence; and delicious original recipes.  Food is so much more than what we eat. The Cassoulet Saved Our Marriage is an anthology of original essays about how we learn (and relearn) to eat, and how pivotal food is beyond the table. 

With essays from:

   • Keith Blanchard
   • Max Brooks
   • Melissa Clark
   • Elizabeth Crane
   • Aleksandra Crapanzano
   • Gregory Dicum
   • Elrena Evans
   • Jeff Gordinier
   • Caroline M. Grant
   • Phyllis Grant
   • Libby Gruner
   • Lisa Catherine Harper
   • Deborah Copaken Kogan and Paul Kogan
   • Jen Larsen
   • Edward Lewine
   • Chris Malcomb
   • Lisa McNamara
   • Dani Klein Modisett
   • Catherine Newman
   • Thomas Peele
   • Deesha Philyaw
   • Neal Pollack
   • Barbara Rushkoff
   • Bethany Saltman
   • K. G. Schneider
   • Sarah Shey
   • Stacie Stukin
   • Karen Valby

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611800142
Publisher:	Shambhala
Publication date:	03/12/2013
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Lisa Catherine Harper is the author of the award-winning memoir A Double Life: Discovering Motherhood (Bison Books/University of Nebraska, 2011). Her writing has appeared in the Huffington Post; Babble; the San Francisco Chronicle; Glimmer Train; Gastronomica; Mama, PhD; Educating Tastes; and on PoetryFoundation.org. She has taught widely in the San Francisco Bay Area, most recently in the MFA program at the University of San Francisco. You can find her online at www.LisaCatherineHarper.com.

Caroline M. Grant is Editor-in-Chief of the online journal Literary Mama and Associate Director of The Sustainable Arts Foundation. She is also coeditor of the anthology Mama, PhD: Women Write About Motherhood and Academic Life (Rutgers University Press, 2008). She has taught at UC Berkeley, Stanford University, and the San Francisco Art Institute, and her essays have been published in a variety of journals and anthologies. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and two sons. For more information, visit her website, carolinemgrant.com.

Table of Contents

For Starters xiii

Part 1 Food

Still Life on the Half-Shell K.G. Schneider 3

Recipe: Deep Winter Oyster Chowder 13

An American Omelet in Brooklyn Sarah Shey 14

Recipe: Egg Casserole 23

A Case for Soul Food Deesha Philyaw 24

Recipe: Blackaroni and Cheese 32

Red Sauce Days Chris Malcomb 33

Recipe: Mom's Eggplant Parm 40

Lobster Lessons Aleksandra Crapanzano 44

Recipe: Pork Cooked in Milk 50

Kosher. Or Not Barbara Rushkoff 52

Recipe: My Mother's Brisket 56

Food Fight Neal Pollack 58

Recipe: Risotto with Zucchini 63

The Sweet Life Keith Blanchard 65

Recipe: French Toast Sandwiches with Toffee - Chocolate Crumble 70

Recipe Phyllis Grant 71

Recipe: Potato and Asparagus Salad with Crème Fraîche and Poached Eggs 74

Part 2 Family

From the Land Max Brooks 79

Recipe: Homemade Yonkers, New York, Italian Tomato Sauce 83

Rachael Ray Saved My Life Melissa Clark 84

Recipe: Tofu Greek Salad Sandwich with Parsley-beta Pesto 89

Pie - Eyed Lisa McNamara 91

Recipe: Apple Pie 98

Food of the Gods Bethany Saltman 100

Recipe: Mystical Gravy 105

Food Hater Jen Larsen 107

Recipe: Chef Kens Chicken Milanese 114

The Cassoulet Saved Our Marriage Deborah Gopaken Kogan Paul Kogan 115

Recipe: The Real Cassoulet Guide 122

The Hunger Shames Karen Valby 128

Recipe: My Husband's Dow Wat 138

May It Never Be the Last Brisket Stacie Stukin 140

Recipe: Hanukkah Meyer Lemon Tart 146

It Takes a Market Elizabeth Crane 148

Recipe: Best-Ever Peach Crisp 155

Talk with Your Mouth Full Catherine Newman 157

Recipe: Lentil Soup with Vinaigrette 162

Part 3 Learning to Eat

A White Food Disorder Dani Klein Modisett 167

Recipe: Three Smoothies 177

One Bite at a Time Elrena Evans 178

Recipe: Making Crepes with a Selective Eater 188

Vegging Out Gregory Dicum 189

Recipe: Cold Vegan Borscht 196

Lunch Lady Caroline M. Grant 198

Recipe: Eli's Super Cake 206

Why Won't My Kids Eat Foie Gras? Jeff Gordinier 207

Recipe: The Roast Chicken That Everyone Will Eat 213

Out of the Box Lisa Catherine Harper 216

Recipe: Crema di Arancello 222

Bad and Plenty: Parental Anxiety in an Age of Food Abundance Edward Lewine 224

Recipe: Banana Bread 230

Shared Books, Shared Tables Libby Gruner 231

Recipe: Crazy Cake 238

The Final Redoubt Thomas Peele 240

Recipe: Dennis Leary's Caramelized Pear Tart with Gorgonzola Cream and Black Pepper Syrup 246

Acknowledgments 248

About the Contributors 249

About the Editors 255

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“A fantastic collection that is as much about relationships as it is about the food that bonds us. You will never look at your family dinner in the same way again.”—Wylie Dufresne, chef and owner of Manhattan’s wd~50 and Alder

“The Cassoulet Saved Our Marriage is a delightful collection of essays that help define the importance of food in our lives. This book made me hungry for good meals and good people. I dare you to read this book and not start planning a dinner party.”—Anne Zimmerman, author of An Extravagant Hunger: The Passionate Years of M.F.K. Fisher

Editorial Reviews

A fantastic collection that is as much about relationships as it is about the food that bonds us. You will never look at your family dinner in the same way again.”—Wylie Dufresne, chef and owner of Manhattan’s wd~50 and Alder

“The Cassoulet Saved Our Marriage is a delightful collection of essays that help define the importance of food in our lives. This book made me hungry for good meals and good people. I dare you to read this book and not start planning a dinner party.”—Anne Zimmerman, author of An Extravagant Hunger: The Passionate Years of M.F.K. Fisher

“I think Caroline Grant and Lisa Harper are on to something with this collection, something left out of polemics about how to eat and the faddish coverage of food in much of the media: that everyone’s understanding of food and flavor and of how to feed themselves is a deeply personal set of preferences and prejudices, forged over years and tempered by the parts of our lives spent away from the table as much as those at it. The Cassoulet Saved Our Marriage brings together a talented and diverse group of writers, and through their appealingly wide-ranging essays, each shares stories—emotional, funny, revealing—about their relationship to food and the way food shapes their relationship to the world. These stories aren’t just about what we eat, but also about how those choices help us understand who we are.”—Peter Meehan, editor, Lucky Peach

“Wildly diverse voices with two things on common: a love of good food, and a love of family, even if both of those loves sometimes show themselves in unexpected ways. It’s as hard to stop at one essay as it is to stop at one French fry, and each one will have you thinking about how you feed, and are fed by, the ones you love.”—KJ Dell’Antonia, lead writer and editor of the Motherlode blog at the New York Times 

“M. F. K. Fisher wrote that one of the best feelings she’d experienced was to know that she had ‘nourished my beloved few,’ sustaining them ‘against the hungers of the world.’ Like Fisher, the writers gathered in The Cassoulet Saved Our Marriage understand how complex it can be to satisfy (even to recognize) those hungers, and how food, as one contributor says, ‘is not an end to itself. It’s a beginning, a starting place.’ These thoughtful, wide-ranging essays reveal our relationship to food—at once primal and intimately idiosyncratic—as inextricable from our appetite for connection: to our pasts, to our futures, to what we hope for and what we’ve lost. Noting that the seasonal produce at the farmer’s market where she shops weekly for her family is ‘as constant and changeable as my children,’ another contributor realizes, ‘In a small but important way, that bag of pluots or pile of arugula says pay attention.’ This collection does, with honesty, humor, and gusto.”—Kate Moses, author of Cakewalk: A Memoir

"A refreshing, fun, and yummy feast of food stories! I love the diversity of tales Grant and Harper packed into this cassoulet-of-a-book and look forward to trying my hand at the many recipes that will surely motivate new experiences in our family’s kitchen and around the table. I find myself too often steeped in the ‘oughts’ of food behavior, and not in the food memories that enrich our lives, and this collection broadened my horizons."—Jered Lawson, Executive Director, Pie Ranch

"The Cassoulet Saved Our Marriage takes dining away from the celebrity aesthete foodies currently infesting America’s restaurants and returns it to the family table where it can be celebrated for its delightfully neurotic origins and near-obsessive manifestations."—Douglas Rushkoff, author of Get Back in the Box

“On the menu of The Cassoulet Saved Our Marriage: ‘crisp, creamy, coppery’ oysters, lobster cooked in sea water, a blueberry muffin pulled hot from a paper bag at 6 a.m. These dishes are offered to us in restaurants, by the beach, at a Brooklyn construction site. These writers are mothers, dads, lovers, and grown-up children I wish I could feast with.”—Betsy Block, author of The Dinner Diaries: Raising Whole Wheat Kids in a White Bread World

From the Publisher