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Material Type | Library | Call Number | Suggested Age | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Book | Searching... Gallaher Village Public Library | 616.8526 HOW | Adult | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
The compulsively readable memoir of a woman at war--with herself, with her body, and with food--while working her way through the underbelly of New York City's glamorous culinary scene.
Hannah Howard is a Columbia University freshman when she lands a hostess job at Picholine, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Manhattan. Eighteen years old and eager to learn, she's invigorated by the manic energy and knife-sharp focus of the crew. By day Hannah explores the Columbia arts scene, struggling to find her place. By night she's intoxicated by boxes of heady truffles and intrigued by the food industry's insiders. She's hungry for knowledge, success, and love, but she's also ravenous because she hasn't eaten more than yogurt and coffee in days.
Hannah is hiding an eating disorder. The excruciatingly late nights, demanding chefs, bad boyfriends, and destructive obsessions have left a void inside her that she can't fill. To reconcile her relationships with the food she worships and a body she struggles to accept, Hannah's going to have to learn to nourish her soul.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Howard, a writer who also mentors women recovering from eating disorders, unflinchingly shares her lifelong struggles with food and eating disorders. Experiencing anorexia, bulimia, and compulsive eating throughout her youth, Howard used food and her weight as she posits many women do: to measure her self-worth, her willpower, her place in the world. "You can't see an eating disorder," she writes. "Thin people, fat people, normal people have this thing. We look like you." As a freshman at Columbia University in 2009, Howard began a hostess job at the upscale Manhattan restaurant Picholine-where her food issues crested, and she became "fascinated by the emergence of my own hipbone, the concave scoop above my clavicle." She moved from one food-related job to another, first as a server at a wine and cheese bar in Manhattan, then as a chain-steak-house management trainee in Los Angeles. Howard also lays bare a string of what she describes as bad choices that she made relating to men, such as dating one of her bosses-a much older, married chef-when she was a minor. Those in recovery from substance abuse will recognize themselves throughout this honest memoir; for those without addiction issues, this story offers a painful glance into the lives of those who suffer. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A nonfiction writer and food expert tells the story of her long struggle to overcome a poor body image and unhealthy eating habits.Howard had always felt like an outsider. She was always the "tallest [girl], towering and ungainly," all through grade school, a dark-haired Jew in "a sea of blondes." To become "dainty and pert," she went so far as to have breast reduction surgery in high school. Unfortunately, her efforts did nothing to fill her inner emptiness or improve the poor self-image at the core of her dissatisfaction. Determined to continue remaking herself, she began what became an unhealthy pattern of yo-yo dieting just before entering Columbia University. At around the same time, the author also had an intense sexual involvement with the troubled middle-age manager of the gelato shop where she worked part-time before moving on to the prestigious Picholine restaurant. Despite academic success at Columbia and an internship at the Serious Eats blog, she still wallowed in private misery as a part-anorexic, part-bulimic woman with the character traits of both disorders: "people-pleasing, timid, perfectionistic, inflexible" on the one hand and "impulsive, dramatic and erratic" on the other. Yet the same passion for food that caused Howard such personal shame eventually came to define her career path as a food industry expert. After graduation, she moved to Los Angeles, where she trained to run a high-end steakhouse, then to Philadelphia, where she managed an "American Italianish" restaurant, then back to NYC, where she worked at the Fairway Market. As she battled her eating disorder, she found herself drawn into sexual relationships that were as passionate as they were destructive. Only after discovering a compulsive-eating recovery group was Howard finally able to find deeper healing and the self-respect that had eluded her. In this candid and searching memoir, Howard offers a celebration of food as well as an account of the determination required to forge a path to self-acceptance.An inspirational memoir of food and finding oneself. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
In her first book, Howard shares a coexisting love of food and hatred of her body. As a young woman, she headed to New York City to restart her life as a new, thinner, better version of herself. She lost the weight, all of it, living on coffee and grapefruit, but couldn't help her obsession with food. At 18, she took a job at a Michelin-starred restaurant and immersed herself in a torturous battle, surrounded by the world's best food. As she alternately starved and binged, her destructive behavior began to leech into other areas of her life. It took Howard years to come to terms with her eating disorder and even longer to begin to truly recover. In this deeply felt memoir, Howard, who also mentors young women recovering from eating disorders, pens riveting accounts of the raging monster of bingeing and haunting tales of days of weakness. Readers who are untouched by an eating disorder will be shocked, and those who know its pain more intimately will find a compassionate and understanding friend in Howard.--Brock, Emily Copyright 2018 Booklist
