Finding Freedom: A Cook's Story; Remaking a Life from Scratch

Finding Freedom: A Cook’s Story; Remaking a Life from Scratch by Erin French 304 pages

Approximately forty-two miles southwest of Bangor, Maine, is the small town of Freedom, home to one of the most desired restaurants in the world: The Lost Kitchen. Reservations at the small restaurant open every year on April 1, and within a couple of days, the entire season is booked.  You can’t call; you have to send in a postcard or a letter that is then placed in a lottery. Hopefuls from all the fifty states and twenty-two countries vie for a seat at the table.

The Lost Kitchen is the dream/restaurant of Erin French, a Mainer born and bred. She has not been to culinary school or studied under great chefs. She relies on instinct and simple foods. The menu changes daily and is based on what local foods are available that day.

Erin French didn’t start out to open a world-renown restaurant. Growing up in Freedom, she dreamed of becoming a doctor. Those plans were waylaid when at twenty-one, French found herself pregnant and alone. She left college and went back home. There she worked with her father in his diner and lived with her parents. She discovered that cooking soothed her soul, and she was good at it. Even the sixteen to eighteen hours a day, six days a week, didn’t dampen her enthusiasm.

Eventually she and her son, Jaim, moved to a cottage on her parent’s property. During the off-season (winter), the diner was closed and she found work in other restaurants. Life was hard. French turned to pills to get her up in the morning, keep her calm during the day and to help her sleep at night.

Soon French met someone and married him. But as soon as the ring went on her finger, her new husband, Tom, began to berate her, control her every move, and, on occasion, threaten her life with physical violence.

 French shares her highs and lows with her reader, without pulling any punches.  Sometime this book is hard to read as French battles for her life and sanity. From multiple tries in rehab to a custody/divorce battle, French’s story is a classic American tale of grabbing yourself by your bootstraps and picking yourself up, time and time again.

I do wish that French had given us a recipe or two. That would have pushed this book into a 6 star category. However, Finding Freedom: A Cook’s Story; Remaking a Life from Scratch receives 5 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world. 

 

The Bookshop on the Shore

The Bookshop on the Shore by Jenny Colgan   416 pages.

Falling in love and lust with an out of work D.J. Zoe soon finds herself a single mother with a guy who will not commit to her nor their son who flies off with his friends at the drop of a hat without even a second thought for anyone but himself.   Having no one to fall back on (Zoe's Dad is dead and her mother moved to Spain) her lover's sister hooks her up with a couple of jobs in Scotland.   A big change from her life in a substandard flat with her son to becoming an au pair to a laird in Scotland is quite a stretch but doable.   Though her son is now 6 years old he has yet to speak, but like a duck to water he takes to his new life in the Highlands and his new best friend - the youngest of the laird's children.   The story is a really good one with lots going on continuously.  Since there is a housekeeper/baby sitter during the day, while Zoe is the au pair at night for the brood, Zoe is able to work a second job during the day working for a very pregnant Nina selling books around the various local villages in Nina's van.    A few clever surprises are thrown in for good measure and Jenny Colgan is such a natural storyteller you don't want her tales to end.    A very enjoyable tale to have a cup of hot tea, and let the characters and their antics take you far away across the sea.   I highly recommend this and all of Jenny Colgan's books.