What a great book and it even includes amazing recipes that will not only comfort you but make you salivate just thinking about them. This is the true story of Emily Nunn’s mental breakdown and recovery through the love comfort of friends, family and good comforting food. Emily has written food columns in both the New Yorker and for the Chicago Tribune. A self-proclaimed foodie she rivals the awe inspiring talents of Julia Child and James Beard, Her book is a how-to on working one’s way through utter despair when your life becomes one big drop off over an abyss of pain, but by sharing her awful circumstances one night on her Facebook page as an outlet for the pressure cooker she was enduring in her life, she was able to connect with a world of friends who loved her and invited her to come stay with them and cook with them and together they all held her up when she was mentally sinking. What led to the Comfort Food Diaries – Emily’s brother, who she was exceedingly close to committed suicide – this left her adrift – how could this have happened, how did she not know how deeply he was processing things to let them get to him this much without her knowing it? They talked constantly. He called and left jokes on her answering machine. What happened? She had no closure. She was living with a man she dearly loved in a fantastic apartment she had found for them, enjoying an ideal life of socializing with their mutual friends, writing at a job she adored and helping to raise her fiancee’s young daughter. She lost all sense of reality when the news came of her brother’s tragic death. Things started unravelling in her ideal life. She cried a lot. She could not function well in taking care of all the little things she had previously done around the home, her fiancee’s daughter told her mother what was going on which led to arguments with her fiancée – his ex did not want their daughter around this weepy mental mush of a person. Then she started drinking, heavily to self-medicate. Her fiancee’ did not like this turn of events. He found her to be an embarrassment. He did not try to help her through what she was experiencing. He did not try to get her help. He told her he would not police her. Then he broke up with her. At first he told her she could stay in the apartment until she found other arrangements, then days later due to his ex’ prodding he told her she had to move out immediately. These last two blows left her feeling like she was drowning and couldn’t come up for air. She went through a mental melt down and was hospitalized for a mental breakdown. Upon release she knew she had to find her way back out of the despair that was paralyzing her. She wrote about her situation on Facebook one night and found out her lonely cry was heard. Friends popped out all over the world inviting her to come stay with them and they could cook together – everyone that knows her knows her culinary skill and her love of cooking and collecting new recipes or receipts as her Aunt and cousins in the South called them. She began her Comfort Food tour. She travelled around the globe staying with friends in their homes, chatting, hugging and cooking. Everyone she spent time with and everywhere she stayed offered love, support and food to die for that was as comforting in its many forms and flavors as were the true friends and loving family members she was lucky enough to be blessed with. A feel good book that will make you so hungry hearing about the wonderful ingredients and how they blend into the magnificent dishes created. Read it around the holidays so you can load up on a buffet of wonderful family favorite foods between chapters. It will make you feel a part of the story and enjoy it that much more. J Bravo Emily Nunn for sharing your wounds and your healing in such an honest way. And thank you for reminding me of the homegrown stories and recipes so richly shared in families and from friends who become family. The tunnel may have been a dark one, but, there is a warm light that smells like all your favorite things baking at the end. Excellent book.
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