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Title: Bittersweet

Subtitle: Lessons From my Mother's Kitchen

Author: Matt McAllester

Narrator: George Holmes

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-05-13

Publisher: Audible Studios for Bloomsbury

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Personal Memoirs

Publisher's Summary:

Matt McAllester lost his mother, Ann, long before she died, as mental illness snatched the once-elegant woman away and destroyed his childhood. In this beautifully written memoir, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist chronicles the journey he took to forgiveness, which brought him straight to the place that evoked his happiest memories of his mother: the kitchen. Recounting the pleasures of his early days, culinary and otherwise, McAllester weaves an unforgettable tale of family, food, and love.

At first, Matt McAllesters childhood was idyllic, a time when his mother placed heavenly, delicious food at the center of a family life brimming with fun and laughter. Then came the terrible years, years when he had to watch helplessly as his warm, quick-witted mother succumbed to an illness that was never properly diagnosed or understood. Desperate to escape, he eventually found work as a foreign correspondent, hiding in the terrors and tragedies of other people as he traveled to the most dangerous places in the world, from Beirut to Baghdad. But nothing he saw on the battlefield prepared him for his mothers death - and his own overwhelming grief.

In the weeks and months that followed, Matt found himself poring over old family photos and letters, trying to reach out for the beautiful, caring woman who had now vanished for the second time. But as he looked anew at her long-cherished collection of cookbooks, it occurred to him that the best way to find her was through something they both loved: the food she had once lovingly prepared for him, food that introduced him to a thousand sources of joy - from spare ribs to the homemade strawberry ice cream that seemed in memory the very essence of happy times.

With a reporters precision and a storytellers grace, McAllester guides us through a long season of grief - cooking, eating, and remembering - at the same time describing his and his wifes efforts to conceive and nourish a child of their own. Complete with recipes to delight body and soul, Bittersweet is a memoir of extraordinary power, at once a moving tribute to his mother and a dazzling feast for the senses.

Members Reviews:

More than you expect

That "Bittersweet" would be a moving memoir is no surprise. It's written by one of our generation's most compelling chroniclers of humanity in conflict, who now turns his skills toward his fraught relationship with his mother, a woman burdened with demons, stifled ambitions and insanities. It's easy to lump it in with other "cooking" memoirs ("Julie and Julia" has already been referenced here) or reflections on motherhood but it's much more.

This book ranges from lighter questions about modern day detachment (topical enough to be the subject of "Up in the Air" in cinemas) and health care indifference to deeper issues like neglect, guilt and love. The themes are carefully unveiled in a plot arc with an emotional twist at the ending. (Disclosure: I'm a friend of the author's but not an automatic cheerleader for his work).

elegant prose, beautiful and tragic

A moving and fascinating book by a gifted journalist, who focuses his investigative talents this time on his own childhood. Years covering the world's most complicated conflict zones apparently gave McAlester great practice at untangling individual tragedy and spinning it into elegant and lucid prose.