Sourdough
What if a loaf of bread could change your life? For Lois Clary, an exhausted software engineer at a robotics company, her favorite hole-in-the-wall’s sourdough and spicy soup takeout are what gets her through coding all day, week after week, while still limiting human interaction. But when the restaurant has to shut down spontaneously, the owners turn to their best customer for a favor: to take care of their family’s sourdough starter. Soon, Lois is baking bread faster than she can eat it, using it to bridge gaps in her social life and find new hobbies. Her loaves are a hit among her co-workers and the company chef urges her to take the starter to a farmer’s market with a twist, one that blends baking and technology. As the book progresses, the starter becomes a character itself, guiding Lois as she discovers the joys of baking and how food can sometimes be a portal to another world. But what will Lois discover as she immerses herself in this underground market and allows the starter to further transform her life? With hints of magical realism and futuristic prose, Robin Sloan’s Sourdough is a whimsical and heartwarming read perfect for readers with culinary curiosity.
—Rebecca, Marketing Manager
We Could Be So Good
The act of cooking a meal for someone is one of the humblest yet loveliest acts of care. In Cat Sebastian’s We Could Be So Good, grouchy journalist Nick Russo has next to no ability to articulate his feelings, even if they’re as increasingly strong as they are for his colleague-then-roommate, Andy Fleming. But what Nick can do is cook a nice bolognese and plop down a bowl in front of chronically forgetful Andy to make sure he eats something for chrissakes. Nick’s cooking is one of the core manifestations of the sense of home and belonging that slowly but surely characterizes their relationship—especially for Andy, whose privileged yet lonely childhood did not once feature a loved one hovering over a steaming pot for him. (And as he’s a WASP and it’s the late 1950s, he’s never before experienced the sublime joy that is Italian food.) It’s the perfect romantic gesture: an everyday act that becomes something precious thanks to what it means to these two people.
—Savanna, Managing Editor
Redwall
White gooseberry wine! Hazelnut cream! Quince tarts! Has food ever felt more delicious and cozy than it does in Brian Jacques’ Redwall, and its sequels? Adventure abounds in Jacques’ hit series, in which the anthropomorphic woodland animals of Mossflower Wood take up arms against dastardly villains such as Cluny the Scourge, a murderous one-eyed rat who attempts to take over the peaceful Redwall Abbey with his mighty army. But between heroic acts, Jacques’ little protagonists always have time for feasts that are described in the most tantalizing, succulent manner possible. Take this sentence for starters: “Tender freshwater shrimp garnished with cream and rose leaves; devilled barley pearls in acorn purée; apple and carrot chews; marinated cabbage stalks steeped in creamed white turnip with nutmeg.” Positively scrumptious. You’ll catch yourself looking longingly at stray acorns on the ground, wishing you too could fashion them into little cups for mint juice.
—Yi, Associate Editor
Family Meal
If the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, Bryan Washington can infiltrate arteries with a few beautiful words about food. In his second novel, Family Meal, food plays an important role in bringing characters together. Childhood friends Cam and TJ are reunited after being estranged. As Cam works through loss and a resulting addiction, he leaves LA to reintegrate into TJ’s Houston community. The two of them are forced to break bread, slowly healing their broken hearts. This book captures the many different types of love that can be expressed through food. For instance, in a flashback, teenage Cam and TJ are caught smoking marijuana on a neighbor’s property and TJ’s father, Jin, has to diffuse the potentially dangerous situation. Afterwards, Jin tries to be stern and lecture the boys, but seeing how the interaction shook them, he gives them each a chocolate chip cookie which, stoned and starving, they relish. It’s gestures like these that make Family Meal, and Washington’s work in general, so moving: he knows that when we don’t know what to say to our loved ones, culinary care is one way we can communicate. Washington is a genius of feeling and a gustatory mastermind.