Synopses & Reviews
Review
"In the spirit of Nora Ephrons Heartburn and Laurie Colwins Home Cooking, Candace Walsh uses the story of her passionate relationship to food to frame a powerful and honest account of her life." —Gretchen Rubin, author of the New York Times bestseller The Happiness Project
"Candace Walsh's luscious prose brings this memoir vividly to life. She weaves the comfort of food throughout her brave and ultimately uplifting quest to find her witty wonderful self. And we readers are nourished by coming along on Walsh's journey. Bon appetit." Cheryl Alters Jamison, four-time James Beard Award-winning author of Smoke and Spice, Tasting New Mexico, The Border Cookbook, and The Big Book of Outdoor Cooking and Entertaining
"Funny, moving, and as irresistible as chocolate cake, Candace Walsh's delicious memoir isn't just a coming-of-age of a remarkable woman by way of the kitchen pantry, but a smart, gorgeously written exploration of the foodsand the peoplewho really nourish us." Caroline Leavitt, author of the New York Times bestseller, Pictures of You
"Like Jane Eyre and Heartburn, Licking the Spoon is a book you won't be able to put down and a story you won't soon forget." Theo Pauline Nestor, author of How to Sleep Alone in a King-Sized Bed
"Engaging in its narrative and as satisfying as the recipes for Ropa Vieja and Chicken Fricassee included, this is truly a memoir from the heart." Curve Magazine
"The book's brightest points serve as testaments to personal reinvention and healing...when Walsh writes with pride and joy of the day she brought her shiny, new KitchenAid home and recalls tenderly the comfort found in a simple chicken fricassee, those moments shimmer like oil in a hot pan." Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
Recipes and cookbooks, meals and mouthfuls have framed the way Candace Walsh sees the world for as long as she can rememberfrom her traditional, frosting-spackled childhood to her meat-eschewing college years to her post-college phase as a disciple of Martha Stewarts culinary oeuvre. Growing up alternately lavished with and starved from emotional and physical sustenance, Walsh developed a complicated and sometimes unhealthy relationship with food, sex, and love; in
Licking the Spoon, she tells howaccompanied by pivotal recipes, cookbooks, culinary movements, and guidesshe unlearned these harmful patterns and began to make sustaining and nourishing changes in her life. Through the lens of food, Walsh connects her journey from straight-identified wife and mother to sexually fluid divorcée in a same-sex relationship, uncovering revelatory and infectious truths about love, food, and her own sensuality (and throwing in a few recipes for good measure).
A surprising and rambunctiously liberating tale of cooking and eating, loving and being loved, Licking the Spoon is one passionately food-centric womans story of how her evolution as a cook shaped her evolution as a personand taught her to feed her soul, heart, and mind as well as she feeds her belly.
About the Author
Candace Walsh has been a freelance writer for almost fifteen years. She has written for many publications, including
Blender, New York Magazine, Mademoiselle, Newsday, Sunset, Travel and Leisure, Mothering, German Vogue, and
Food and Wine. She is also the managing editor of the website My Healing Kitchen, a co-founder of
Mamalicious magazine, and the editor of two Seal Press anthologies:
Dear John, I Love Jane: Women Write About Leaving Men for Women and
Ask Me About My Divorce: Women Open Up About Moving On.