Relish - Lucy Knisley

Title: Relish: My Life in the Kitchen
Author: Lucy Knisley
Genre: Non-fiction, memoir
Rating: 4.5/5
# pages: 192
Date read: September 2012, June 2014, June 2020


This book should come with a disclaimer: Warning! Will make you HUNGRY! ... and not just plain ole hungry that any apple or biscuit could satisfy. No, hungry for good, high-quality food. Alas all I had available was a bottle of water :-/ So perhaps the disclaimer should be extended to say Make sure you have a snack readily available while reading.

I had not realized that "Relish: My Life in the Kitchen" was a graphic novel when I received it. Actually, I'm rather glad I hadn't, because I think that would have given me preconceived ideas of what the book was like - and they would have been wrong. I only discovered because the book was too big for my iPad to handle smoothly (it took awhile to turn pages), but fortunately my laptop handled it just fine, so I just switched to that instead :)

"Relish" is the story of Lucy Knisley's upbringing as the daughter of two foodies and an aspiring foodie herself. Each chapter describes a part of her life as it is connected to a food experience of some sort, and usually ends with a recipe for just that food. Several of which I absolutely have to try out now!

The media worked really well for this kind of book. I was a bit apprehensive about the "comic book style" at first (as shown by my 'preconceived ideas'), but it actually really worked! I loved the drawings and the writing style.

Lucy's love for cooking and good food is apparent in every anecdotes she shares with the reader, and it turns this book into a delightfully charming and witty read. I highly recommend it.