Synopses & Reviews
Based on the James Beard Award-Winning Blog
Born and raised in New York to a food-phobic mother and a food-fanatical father, Elissa learned early on that fancy is always best. After a childhood spent dining at fine establishments, from Le Pavillon to La Grenouille, she devoted her life to all things gastronomical. She served rare game birds at elaborate dinner parties in an apartment so tiny that the guests couldnand#8217;t turn around and bought eight timbale molds while working at Dean and DeLuca, just to make her food tall.
Then, Elissa met and fell in love with Susanand#151;a frugal, small-town Connecticut Yankee with a devotion to simple livingand#151;and it changed her relationship with food, and the people who taught her about it, forever.
Told with tender and often hilarious honesty, and filled with twenty-six delicious recipes, Poor Manand#8217;s Feast is a tale of finding sustenance and peace in a world of excess and inauthenticity, demonstrating how all our stories are inextricably bound up with how we feed ourselves and those we love.
Review
and#8220;A brave, generous story about family, food, and finding the way home.and#8221;and#8212;Molly Wizenberg, author of
A Homemade Life
and#8220;A wild ride with biting highs, withering lows, and tremendous wit and humor...A beautiful story.and#8221;and#8212;Deborah Madison, author of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
and#8220;Sometimes heartbreaking, often hilarious, this is one of the finest food memoirs of recent years.and#8221;and#8212;The New York Times Book Review
and#8220;Delightful . . . A wealth of food tales about foodies and food phobics, cooks and kitchen disasters, cooking successes and failuresand#8212;all in clear, pleasing prose . . . Poor Manand#8217;s Feast deserves a place on the shelf with the finest food writers.and#8221;and#8212;New York Journal of Books
and#8220;[Altman] artfully merges relationship narrative, personal history, and food memoir in this satisfying book. . . . Luminous writing brings many stories small and large to feed the heart.and#8221;and#8212;Publishers Weekly
and#8220;[Told] with her delicious trademark blend of humor, love, and dedication to simplicity in life and, of course, in food.and#8221;and#8212;Portland Monthlyand#160;
About the Author
Elissa Altman writes PoorMansFeast.com, winner of the 2012 James Beard Award for Individual Food Blog. A food and cookbook editor as well as writer, her work has appeared in Saveur and the New York Times, on Gilt Taste and the Huffington Post, and has twice been selected for inclusion in Best Food Writing. She lives in Connecticut with Susan Turner and a small herd of animals.