How to Share an Egg — First Look!
Wheeeee... it’s finally time. I’ve been waiting and waiting, like a little kid with a rock or a seashell, all set for show and tell. And now, here it is — my cover, plus a special sneak- peek excerpt
Can I just say that I’m overjoyed to share my memoir’s cover with you? Thanks to the extraordinarily talented Léa Maupetit for the beautiful egg, to Rachel Ake at Ballantine for the gorgeous design. Thanks to my brilliant agent Michelle Tessler, my wonderful editor Sara Weiss, the entire crew at Ballantine, and the great people at Appetite. This book has been inside me for decades, but honestly, I wasn’t sure I would ever get it out. These are the people who showed me the way.
The book is featured today on CBC Books — you can read an exclusive early excerpt here.
And if you’re new here or if, perhaps, I’ve been a little too cryptic about what I’ve been working on these past few years, here’s a full description of the book, as well as links, should you be moved to pre-order. More to come, dear F&Pers. There will be a lot more to come. But for now, I hope you enjoy this first look. Thank you for being here.
A moving culinary memoir about the relationship between food and family—sustenance and survival—from a chef, award-winning journalist, and daughter of a Holocaust survivor.
When you’re 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 father’s near-starvation and ultimate survival in Auschwitz-Birkenau, but she never imagined she would be able to face this epic legacy head-on.
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. Stepping into the kitchen to connect her past with her future, the author recounts the defining moments of her life in a poignant tale of scarcity and plenty: her colorful childhood in the restaurant business, 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. Whether it’s the flaky potato knishes and molasses porridge bread she learned to bake at her baba Sarah’s 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.
January 21, 2025!