The Recipe Club: A Tale of Food and Friendship A Novel by Andrea Israel and Nancy Garfinkel
Polhemus Press, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-9823492-0-5
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher to review for this blog.
Lilly and Val are best friends. They are the typical pairing of friends, as one is dramatic and charismatic, while the other is her other half to include shyness and a lacking of self confidence. The two friends started a letter writing habit at a young age and decided they would call it their Recipe Club and have a recipe included with each letter they wrote to each other. The letters chronicle the happenings in the lives of each girl with a recipe that often has a name derived from that event. Such names include Good Karma Veggie Samosa and Apple and Pear Friendship Fool, with the book containing 80 recipes.
Overall, I liked the book. However, it seemed at times the characters were annoying and you wanted to tell them to stop bickering. The characters seemed more enemies than friends for most of the book and the ending didn't seem to fit well with the the overall concept of what had taken place during their lives. I think I would have liked the characters to have more depth so that the reader could have a better connection with them.
I would recommend the book just for the recipes, because I am a recipe collector. It has inspired me to start my own Recipe Club by email so if anyone would like to join, please leave a comment with your email address or you can email me at laura.leahj@gmail.com
Great review! The book sounds great for the recipes, but too bad that the characters got annoying at some point. :)
ReplyDeleteThere are so many books out there recently that are recipe/book collections - sounds like this one may be valuable for the recipes, at least!
ReplyDeleteSounds interesting! Recipes at least are good.
ReplyDeletepbclark(at)netins(dot)net
Would love to check this out --- at least for the recipes.
ReplyDeletersgrandinetti@yahoo(DOT)com