The meth lunches Food and longing in an American city

Food writer Foster explores how food can serve as a catalyst for connection in communities ravaged by addiction, homelessness, and a global pandemic in this searing debut memoir. Relating her family's move from New York City to Las Vegas in the 2010s, Foster describes encountering for the first time public drug use ("at the supermarket, at the corner store"), which motivated her, her husband, and their two daughters to find ways to support their new community, including by offering well-paid employment to day laborers, becoming foster parents, and, most crucially, offering meals to anyone and everyone. These efforts culminated in a "full on street pantry" being built in their front yard during the height of Covid-19. Throughout, Foster interacts with such down-on-their-luck figures as Charlie, a meth-addicted handyman whom she starts having over for lunches; and Mrs B., "a lifer on the streets" who shares with Foster her love of kimchi. Foster's analysis of food as a social connector is incisive (she smartly observes the comforting role McDonald's plays as a source of "consistency and permanence in unpredictable lives"). Some readers may be troubled by Foster's admission that the James Beard Award--winning essay she adapted into this book reveals intimate personal details of its subjects' lives without their permission. Still, this glimpse of down-and-out America transfixes. (Oct.)

A mournful exploration of the connections between food and community, set against the ravages experienced by the marginalized. In her debut book, Foster, a James Beard Award--winning writer, details her family's experiences after moving to Las Vegas to facilitate her husband's work as a show producer. As she became attuned to the city's bleak undertow of addiction and poverty, she tried to counter it with a passion for cooking and sharing, beginning with their meth-addicted handyman, Charlie, whom she invited for lunch daily until his decline prevented such gestures. "In just three months," she writes, "we have seen Charlie and [his wife] Tessie through a lifetime of crises--temporary sobriety, meth binges, two stints in jail, three moves, one eviction, [and] several religious, end-of-the-world texts." These caring instincts drove her to first foster and then adopt two severely traumatized children. They also started an at-home food pantry for the needy during the pandemic: "Trauma food is what I'm trying to provide." Foster engages subtopics including the plight of the unhoused and the mentally ill, with the backdrop of the city's ruthless service economy and the exploitative nature of low-end housing. The author's deepening connections to the troubled individuals she encountered highlight both her empathy and frustration. Throughout, she contrasts her sensual, detailed depictions of food and the satisfactions inherent in the private act of cooking and collective solutions like food pantries and foster parenting with the intractably grim circumstances of those she befriends and assists. Foster writes sensitively, with percussive and observant prose, portraying herself as well meaning yet also conscious of her status. "Words like heirloom, organic, localmay exude certain privileges," she writes, "but the joy of food is not a privilege." Despite relishing the benefits of the hard labor of building social capital, her outlook remains hobbled by reality: "Poverty is a policy choice. We have poverty because we choose to have it." A disheartening yet engaging, urgent report from the front lines of social decline. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.