Poor Man's Feast: A Love Story Of Comfort, Desire, And The Art Of Simple Cooking (2013) - Plot & Excerpts
I just devoured this book over the weekend and it was delicious! While I was kept a bit at a distance as a reader, I loved Altman's sometimes cynical, sometimes insecure, but always honest prose overflowing with perfectly suited metaphor and food words that make you want to read cookbooks like novels just to encounter them again. It's a positive change to read a quiet love story in which the lovers are mature and independent participants, both entering the relationship mindfully and whole-heartedly. It wasn't a romance for the ages, but it certainly seems it will stand the test of time and fulfill these two compatibly incompatible women for a lifetime.My only complaint would be that the descriptions of "oozing" cheese were a bit gratuitous! I realize, however, that we cheese-haters are the minority! :) Elissa Altman has been compared with M.F.K. Fisher. I don't get it. Her writing does not possess the elegance or the class that Fisher's prose does. Altman's voice is condescending, her style stiff, her narrative often angry. I liked the recurring theme of the love between her and her father, which I really understood to be the foundation of her love of all things food. But everything else, particularly her relationship with her now-wife, felt strangely not-real-enough for me, and therefore, boring. I did finish the book although I nearly gave up a few times. The reviews on Amazon are stellar, but they all seem to have been written by her fans who were determined to like the book before even they purchased it.
What do You think about Poor Man's Feast: A Love Story Of Comfort, Desire, And The Art Of Simple Cooking (2013)?
Tall food. Hilarious. Otherwise, pacing too slow. Too many name drops I didn't know or care about.
—Boss
Nice light read. I enjoyed the love story but the food wAs too heavy for my taste!
—kayclemson10
This chick's not much of a writer but there are some terrific recipes in here!!
—mbvx289
Everyone judging.Gave me tons anxiety.Why can't food "just be"?
—jonathan
