Our lady of perpetual hunger A memoir

Lisa Donovan, 1977-

Book - 2020

"Lisa Donovan is anyone's definition of a strong woman. She has built several lauded restaurants from the ground up, including Sean Brock's Husk empire; she raised two brilliant children with no money; she is a rape survivor; she is a profoundly talented artist. But from her early childhood, she had been told at every juncture that she wasn't enough: she came from a poor Southern family that despised its own Zuni/Mexican roots and repeatedly silenced its women. And yet through their pain, the women of Donovan's family had found strength and passion through food. They expressed their love by making beautiful things in the kitchen, and they inspired Donovan's accomplished career. But the path never grew smooth. F...or all the accolades she received along the way, the restaurant industry seemed only to allow men to claim the top mantles. Donovan watched male chefs co-opt recipes, stories, and cultures that had been built by women until she had enough. OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HUNGER is Donovan's reclaiming of her own story and of the story of the women who came before her. It's also an unforgettable Southern journey of class, gender, and race as told through food"--

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Subjects
Genres
Autobiographies
Published
New York : Penguin Press 2020.
Language
English
Main Author
Lisa Donovan, 1977- (author)
Physical Description
291 pages ; 24 cm
ISBN
9780525560944
  • 1. Buoyancy Fruit
  • 2. A Beginning Wheat
  • 3. A Pivot Wine
  • 4. Arrival Bitter Chocolate
  • 5. Hope Fire
  • 6. Pillars and Posts Salt and Clay
  • 7. Coming and Going Water
  • 8. Staying Roots and Soil
  • 9. Hunger Cornmeal
  • 10. Stamina Buttermilk
  • 11. Arithmetic Bitters and Tonic
  • 12. Dedications Pie
  • 13. Finding Layer Cakes
  • 14. Remembering Masa
  • 15. Death Lamb
  • 16. Rebirth Burgundy
  • Acknowledgments
Review by Booklist Review

Donovan, a James Beard Award-winning pastry chef from the South, in this memoir reveals the struggles and hard-fought lessons that have made her the courageous woman that she is today. Inspired by a comment from food-world star Diana Kennedy, who encouraged the author to tell her own story, the book is written in a fierce and visceral style. Donovan illustrates the intense pressures of being a woman, focusing on her early years--both the challenges and the happy times--and also the complexity of her relationships with the women in her life. Passionate about her craft, Donovan credits her success to her willingness to say yes: "I followed a path that became clear only as I placed one foot in front of the other and said yes, very often with unknown outcomes." She articulates universal truths while also encouraging readers to think about their own relationships. In a world that all too often credits male chefs for the culinary contributions of women and people of color, this is a valuable addition to the culinary memoir canon.Women in Focus: The 19th in 2020

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Pastry chef and James Beard Award--winning essayist Donovan writes of her life in the restaurant industry in this feisty confessional. An army brat whose family moved often, Donovan eventually landed in a small coastal Florida town "that felt wholly and destructively permanent." There, she worked as a server in a ramshackle Italian eatery, a "cigar den housed in a doublewide trailer." It was "an oasis" for her, and her caring coworkers became her "first kitchen family." Plans to leave for college and escape an abusive boyfriend ended with an unexpected pregnancy. She sought refuge by teaching herself to bake using library books and soon found "control through food" and "a deep sense of worth and value." She moved to Nashville, juggled her career with raising her daughter, and became pastry chef at several top restaurants. Despite earning widespread acclaim, male owners and chefs refused to pay her fairly, she writes, and she eventually left restaurant work to cook at yoga retreats and other special events, "breaking away from the... toxic patriarchal culture" to work independently and reclaim "the right to cook and be in a kitchen in a way that felt right to me." Donovan's candid, passionate memoir will resonate with anyone who has worked in professional kitchens, and particularly women. (Aug.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

An acclaimed pastry chef in some of the South's top kitchens and winner of a James Beard Award for her writing, Donovan survived a hardscrabble upbringing in a family anxious about its mixed-race background and dismissive of women. As a young mother, she was also abused. But she stuck with her career, finally listening to food doyenne Diana Kennedy's advice: "Stop letting men tell your story."

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

The debut memoir of family and food from a renowned pastry chef and food writer. Donovan, who received a James Beard Award for her work in Food & Wine, chronicles her career as a chef and her unrelenting passion for the culinary arts, but she also digs into her family history, offering keen reflections on the intersections of race and gender and spirited discussions of work, class, and opportunity. Donovan grew up in a mixed-race military family that featured both Southern and Mexican lineages, and she ably conveys the assimilationist pain of reckoning with the family pretense that it "was better to be invisible than to not be white." From childhood to adulthood, the author unpacks her complex heritage through fascinating stories of trials, persistence, and success. At times, overly nostalgic flashbacks cloud the narrative--Donovan admits that she is "faulty for romanticizing all number of things. I know this about myself"--but a compelling voice holds everything together. The author integrates harrowing accounts of abuse, rape, abortion, marriage, and motherhood with discussions of her varied professional experiences, most of which have included workplace sexism. Donovan pointedly shows how women's labor behind the scenes is often exploited to advance profits and egos. "Women are revered straight into abjection," she writes, "useful only as a totem of inspiration. When we go to make that work our own, we are unable to survive in the industry the men built, the one they sell our wares within." Occasionally, the author's underdetailed representations flatten the impact of her experiences, but Donovan is to be commended for bringing exploitive work relationships to light while tackling the ego-driven world of celebrity chefs. As such, the book is not just a lively story of a talented pastry chef at the top of her game; it's also a profoundly relatable memoir of the pervasive push back against female success. A fresh voice with a recipe for empowerment. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.