Bon Appetempt

October 20, 2014
In a bland look back at her middle American childhood maneuvering between her parents’ joint custody, L.A. journalist and blogger Morris found comfort and control in learning how to simplify elaborate recipes for her own use. The daughter of two doctors in Meadville, Pa.—her father was one of two ob-gyns in town, her mother one of two pediatricians—Morris was five years old when her father had a child by his “mistress.” The divorce and split of households that followed meant that she grew up largely feeling unloved in her father’s new household in Saegertown. By high school, however, she had moved to her mother and stepfather’s place in Pittsburgh, where she was copiously fed and religiously went to church; in Pittsburgh she met her future husband, Matt. She attended Johns Hopkins University and eventually moved with Matt to Hollywood to hustle jobs in film and TV writing. Much of Morris’s chronological memoir relays the young couple’s valiant attempts to pursue their creative endeavors while forced to find temp jobs. Morris earned an M.F.A., planned a wedding despite some opposition in her family to a Jewish husband, and started a blog exploring how recipes from food magazines turn out in the hands of ordinary cooks like her which was “messy, poorly lit, and falling well short of our aspiration.” Unfortunately, Morris’s lackluster prose never elevates the story.

December 1, 2014
A refreshing take on growing up and coming to terms with the joys and travails of family, career and navigating the kitchen.After moving from the East Coast to hypercompetitive Los Angeles, Morris felt stymied by her lack of success as a creative writer and her husband's failure in the film industry. But on Christmas Day, after attempting a complex chocolate cake recipe, which failed spectacularly, the author concluded that hard work doesn't always translate into success. More importantly, for the first time, she understood that failure is just another part of growing up. Following the cake disaster, Morris moved on from resenting the images in slick cooking magazines and began blogging about her own culinary exploits, comparing her creations with those in cooking magazines. What began as a "novelty hobby" became a source of pleasure. "I enjoy the whole process-from grocery shopping to eating the results, and even, on some days, in the repetitive nature of washing the dishes at the end of the night," she writes. In addition to chronicling her culinary adventures, Morris also dissects her often bumpy family relationships. After submitting an essay about cooking with her elderly grandmother and having it rejected, Morris posted it on her blog; it eventually won " 'Best Culinary Essay' in Saveur magazine's food blog awards." Throughout the book, Morris couples significant life events with recipes that recall memories of that time. When her parents divorced and her mother moved to Pittsburgh, Morris recalls her cooking chicken cordon bleu; upon returning home from a trip to Paris, the author craved miso ramen with a poached egg; and the first meal the author made sans recipe was rice and black beans in coconut milk with avocado. Whether Morris is deconstructing her failed attempts at finding satisfying work, struggling with rocky family relationships or experiencing a culinary failure, she adroitly blends the ingredients of humor and self-reflection.

COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

October 1, 2014
Exactly as her book's subtitle declares, Morris comes of age in these pages: she sees her parents divorce and attends high school; she goes to college and falls in love; she marries, moves across the country, and earns an MFA in writing. Morris adopts an interest in cooking as an adult, grabbing food glossies at grocery checkouts and trying to re-create the meals they picture. The impetus for the blog she starts, with which this book shares its name, was a growing realization that if words failed her, food wouldn't: cooking, as opposed to writing, became a place to lightheartedly attempt great things, and not feel personally hurt if she failed. Recipes of all kinds and levels of difficulty cap off most chapters: vanilla cake with dulce de leche; raw oysters on the half-shell; pasta carbonara; miso ramen with a poached egg. Some recipes are described in the text, too, like the toasted cheeriosMorris makes, immediately summoning childhood memories. Sure to appeal to fans of her personable blog, and to round up new ones.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)