THE VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

A cooking instructor and food writer presents vignettes from her life through more than 100 recipes in this memoir/cookbook.

Gale comes from a long line of storytellers, and their tales, she says, were always told around the dinner table. This book, then, can be read as a way for her to preserve her family’s memories, as well as recipes for the meals that accompanied their telling. The author takes readers on a personal food journey—from her hatred of baked beans in the late 1950s to the elegant Jell-O shots she made for an anniversary celebration at Olana State Historic Site in Greenport, New York. Along the way, Gale vividly introduces readers to various members of her family, including her paternal grandmother, Bubbe, who “never went to the movies and never had a happy day in her life,” and her maternal grandmother, Nana, who “literally had no garbage pails in her apartment.” The book’s structure is simple: Gale provides vignettes about people in her life, each leading into a related recipe. The book’s most interesting foods stress the author’s Jewish-American heritage, such as her mother’s challah, or offer a unique twist on a common ingredient, such as a cold cherry soup. Readers may find other dishes less appealing, such as a recipe that involves baking cooked pasta, Del Monte tomato sauce, and Kraft American cheese in an oven. Gale also includes recipes from her childhood that seem too simplistic; the instructions for “Chocolate Cinnamon Toast,” for instance, are just two sentences long. Although the author describes each recipe adequately, the book would also be improved by images of the finished products; most only feature a line drawing of a single ingredient by Gale’s son Tobias or the author herself. Many of the author’s stories are funny or touching recollections. However, they often seem disconnected from a larger narrative—as if readers are looking at a stranger’s vacation photos, rather than reading a cohesive memoir.

A work with unique recipes and rich memories, but one that ultimately feels disjointed.