Bittersweet: Lessons from My Mother's Kitchen

Matt McAllester lost his mother, Ann, long before she died, as mental illness snatched the once-elegant woman away and destroyed his childhood. In this beautifully written memoir, the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist chronicles the journey he took to forgiveness, which brought him straight to the place that evoked his happiest memories of his mother: the kitchen. Recounting the pleasures of his early days, culinary and otherwise, McAllester weaves an unforgettable tale of family, food, and love.

BITTERSWEET: LESSONS FROM MY MOTHERS KITCHEN

At first, Matt McAllesters childhood was idyllic, a time when his mother placed heavenly, delicious food at the center of a family life brimming with fun and laughter. Then came the terrible years, years when he had to watch helplessly as his warm, quick-witted mother succumbed to an illness that was never properly diagnosed or understood. Desperate to escape, he eventually found work as a foreign correspondent, hiding in the terrors and tragedies of other people as he traveled to the most dangerous places in the world, from Beirut to Baghdad. But nothing he saw on the battlefield prepared him for his mothers deathand his own overwhelming grief.

In the weeks and months that followed, Matt found himself poring over old family photos and letters, trying to reach out for the beautiful, caring woman who had now vanished for the second time. But as he looked anew at her long-cherished collection of cookbooks, it occurred to him that the best way to find her was through something they both loved: the food she had once lovingly prepared for him, food that introduced him to a thousand sources of joyfrom spare ribs to the homemade strawberry ice cream that seemed in memory the very essence of happy times.

With a reporters precision and a storytellers grace, McAllester guides us through a long season of griefcooking, eating, and rememberingat the same time describing his and his wifes efforts to conceive and nourish a child of their own.

Complete with recipes to delight body and soul, Bittersweet is a memoir of extraordinary power, at once a moving tribute to his mother and a dazzling feast for the senses.

"In this eloquent tribute, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist McAllester (Blinded by the Sunlight: Surviving Abu Ghraib and Saddam's Iraq) takes a break from global conflict to address a much more intimate struggle, his late mother's descent into mental illness. After learning of her death, McAllester pores through his mother's old collection of cookbooks in an attempt to reconnect with the loving woman he remembers. Using the wise work of British celebrity chef Elizabeth David, his mother's true north in all things culinary, McAllester masters cassoulet, lobster, elaborate omelets, and steak with bordelaise sauce, gaining not only in confidence and ability but in understanding and acceptance. The process involves McAllester's touching descriptions of his mother's dishes and the memories they elicit: strawberry ice cream, homemade bread and a stolen taste of fresh parsley all provoke fond stories of his mother in her prime. As he tries to makes sense of his mother's declining years, visiting past residences and even requesting her medical files, McAllester loses some of his enthusiasm for cooking, but brings his mother's complicated, troubled soul into focus. With this memoir, McAllester makes a fine, food-centric testament to the redemptive power of grief and acceptance." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Matt McAllester is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for Newsday before returning to London, where he now lives with his wife, Pernilla. Winner of a number of other awards, including the Osborn Elliott Award for Excellence for his coverage of Nepal in 2006 and several overseas Press Club citations for his international reporting, he is currently a contributing editor at Details.