Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love by Lara Vapnyar | Fiction | DONNE TEMPO
Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love by Lara Vapnyar
August/15/08 08:58 PM Filed in: Fiction
By Cecei O'Bryon England
Eating can be a sensuous experience. In Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love (Pantheon for Random House. ISBN-10: 0375424873. $13.60), Vapnyar's offers a collection of short stories about a group of immigrant New Yorkers that reveal their attitudes toward love and home through their relationship with food.
The
author presents each characters approach to every
meal so that it revels their state of mind while
the author explores the nature of yearning,
homeland, and the human desire for love.
One of the group is Nina, a Russian immigrant living in New York City. She works long hours and her husband works long hours yet she finds her free time and life made colorful by the purchase of fresh vegetables in the local market.
Unfortunately, these fade and rot in her refrigerator until she learns to cook them.
Luda and Milena are two older women who seek the attention of the sole widower in their esol class through their cooking. In this story the women must find their way to each other.
There are lonely men seeking food as much as companionship and lonely women seeking connection instead of company and people finding themselves through their choices of food.
Vapnyar allows these stories of the immigrant experience in America to center around meal preparation, grocery purchases and eating yet the reader gains insight into the displacement of the characters and their search for sustenance on many levels.
Vapnyar includes her own recipes for Salad Olivier, broccoli, spinach, borsht, and other delightful dishes whose creations are steeped in meaning.
Eating can be a sensuous experience. In Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love (Pantheon for Random House. ISBN-10: 0375424873. $13.60), Vapnyar's offers a collection of short stories about a group of immigrant New Yorkers that reveal their attitudes toward love and home through their relationship with food.
One of the group is Nina, a Russian immigrant living in New York City. She works long hours and her husband works long hours yet she finds her free time and life made colorful by the purchase of fresh vegetables in the local market.
Unfortunately, these fade and rot in her refrigerator until she learns to cook them.
Luda and Milena are two older women who seek the attention of the sole widower in their esol class through their cooking. In this story the women must find their way to each other.
There are lonely men seeking food as much as companionship and lonely women seeking connection instead of company and people finding themselves through their choices of food.
Vapnyar allows these stories of the immigrant experience in America to center around meal preparation, grocery purchases and eating yet the reader gains insight into the displacement of the characters and their search for sustenance on many levels.
Vapnyar includes her own recipes for Salad Olivier, broccoli, spinach, borsht, and other delightful dishes whose creations are steeped in meaning.