Book
How to share an egg : a true story of hunger, love, and plenty / Bonny Reichert.
Bonny Reichert avoided engaging with her family's Holocaust history until, in midlife, she unexpectedly confronted it while writing an article. Her father's survival in Auschwitz-Birkenau was a backdrop to her upbringing, but a transformative experience in Warsaw -- a perfect bowl of borscht -- sparked a journey to explore her culinary roots. This journey intertwined with her personal life, from her childhood in the restaurant business to the challenges of marriage, motherhood, and her eventual path to becoming a chef. In her memoir How to Share an Egg, Reichert reflects on pivotal life moments through the lens of food. From her baba Sarah's knishes to her father's comforting scrambled eggs, cuisine serves as a symbol of joy, survival, and identity. The book blends poignant stories of scarcity and abundance with her quest for self-discovery, exploring how her personal experiences connect to her family's legacy. It's a moving meditation on heritage, resilience, and the role of food in shaping identity.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780525612568 (hardcover)
- Physical Description: xii, 284 pages ; 22 cm
- Publisher: Toronto : Appetite by Random House, [2025]
- Copyright: ©2025
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Reichert, Bonny. Cooks > Biography. Food > Social aspects. |
| Genre: | Biographies. Autobiographies. Personal narratives. |
Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at Tsuga Consortium.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stroud Branch | 641.5092 Reich | 31681010403772 | NONFIC | Available | - |
- Random House, Inc.
A GLOBE & MAIL AND TORONTO STAR BESTSELLER
âI started crying on page one; a few pages later I burst into laughter. This beautifully written book takes readers on an emotional journey that is both heartbreaking and hopeful.â âRuth Reichl, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Novel
âAbsolutely transformative.â âPeople
âA mesmerizing memoir . . . Nimble and nourishing, this is not to be missed.â âPublishers Weekly (starred review)
A moving culinary memoir about the relationship between food and familyâand sustenance and survivalâfrom a chef, award-winning Canadian journalist, and daughter of a Holocaust survivor.
When youâre raised by someone who once survived on potato peels and coffee grounds, you develop a pretty healthy respect for food.
Bonny Reichert avoided everything to do with the Holocaust until she found herself, in midlife, suddenly typing those words into an article she was writing. The journalist had grown up hearing stories about her fatherâs near-starvation and ultimate survival in Auschwitz-Birkenau, but she never imagined she would be able to face this epic legacy head on.Â
Then a chance encounter with a perfect bowl of borscht in Warsaw set Bonny on a journey to unearth her culinary lineage, and she began to dig for the roots of her food obsession, dish by dish. Tracing the defining moments of her life, from her colorful childhood in the restaurant business to the crumbling of her first marriage and the intensity of young motherhood, her decision to become a chef and that life-altering visit to Poland, the author recounts a tale of scarcity and plenty, stepping into the kitchen to connect her past to her future. Whether it's the flaky potato knishes and molasses porridge bread she learned to bake at her Baba Sarahâs elbow, the creamy vichyssoise she taught herself to cook in her tiny student apartment, or the brown butter eggs her father, now 93, still scrambles for her whenever she needs comfort, cuisine is both an anchor and an identity; a source of joy and a signifier of survival.
How to Share an Egg is a journey of deep flavors and surprising contrasts. By turns sweet, salty, sour, and bitter, this is one woman's search to find her voice as a writer, chef, mother and daughter. Do the tiny dramas of her own life matter in comparison to everything her father has seen and done? This moving exploration of heritage, inheritance, and self-discovery sets out to find the answer.
