Customer Reviews

The Gastronomy of Marriage: A Memoir of Food and Love

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When Michelle Maisto went to dinner for the first time with Rich, she was taken by the way he took pains to order the chocolate soufflé at the beginning of the meal, thus ensuring a delicious warm treat for dessert. Food is an important part of Michelle's life; the soufflé incident is significant because it reveals a meaningful new layer to Rich's personality. She is now acutely aware that they are connected through their love of good meals.

There are other pivotal points to their burgeoning relationship. At his apartment, she notices a DVD of a movie she alone seems to adore --- and is amazed to hear he is also a fan. Much more dramatically, when Michelle is accepted into Columbia and must move across the country, Rich relocates with her. It isn't until she graduates and they become engaged, however, that they actually start living together.

And that's when the trouble begins.

Michelle adores Rich, but she has conflicted feelings about entering into a marriage. Her mixed emotions are symbolized by the couple's eating arrangements. Suddenly, their love of eating becomes a hurdle --- even more so when Rich must take on extra work so they can pay for their wedding, necessitating Michelle's offer to solely shop and cook (chores they had previously shared). Their eating differences and preferences are also magnified. Michelle is a vegetarian; Rich eats meat. She has an Italian heritage; his is Chinese. While Michelle can digest just about anything, Rich's system is more delicate, yet she is content with a very light evening meal, and he requires something rather substantial. When it comes to meals, Michelle is a planner while Rich would rather be more spontaneous.

Against these smaller but still important dissimilarities, Michelle grapples with larger concerns, such as that of her role in her upcoming marriage. She does not want to be a traditional homemaker, and her current responsibility as shopper and cook is troubling and thought-provoking. She also must come to grips with a spiritual conundrum regarding her soon-to-be husband and the nature of her own religious faith.

As Michelle and Rich negotiate their relationship, Michelle also relates another love affair --- her intense affection for their Brooklyn neighborhood and the city of New York, which she describes in glowing detail. In that off-beat neighborhood, in their quirky apartment, Michelle and Rich gradually fit their lives together into one, piece by piece. They often feast gloriously (while generously sharing their recipes with readers) but stumble at times with hastily thrown together snack foods for meals.

If the wedding planning seems to lose urgency and momentum for much of the middle of the book, the story is all the better for it. After all, Michelle's emphasis is on the melding of two lives and palates into a workable whole, and not on the arrangement of one occasion. Foodies who have also navigated a valuable and deepening relationship fraught with eating concerns will especially enjoy this story of passions of the heart and table, filled with glorious descriptions of meals and the couple's special recipes.

--- Reviewed by Terry Miller Shannon

Michelle Maisto present an intriguing autobiography. It covers about six months of her life in a non-linear kind of way, the period that led up to her marriage. It includes the usual tensions, like compatibility between the couple's very different ethnic and religious backgrounds, plus the controlled panic that seems to precede just about every wedding.

Others have described these moments in life, with their odd rewards and compromises. For Maisto, however, food and dining become the central metaphor. She likes to have the menu planned in advance; he actually seems uneasy if it's not a last-minute inspiration. His family taught him the light, clear flavors of Chinese cooking, hers taught her about rich sauces and deep warm tastes. As in every part of a relationship, very different solutions work for different problems: taking turns, each going their separate way, learning and adapting the other's style, or striking out in some direction equally new to them both, rather than favor one or the other.

I found myself drawn to this book, even without the intriguing recipes that end a few of the chapters. My own marriage has involved food from the very start, when my now-wife discovered that I could not only cook but cook fairly well. (I recommend cooking to any young man who wants an edge in attracting the ladies.) We've dealt with the family holidays, the comfort foods that border on holy ritual, and the vegetarian vs. omnivore question, just as Maisto and her fiance have. I guess part of what intrigued me was how much Maisto's solutions, with her beau, differed from the ones that have played out in my own life.

That's the purpose of books like this, however. They celebrate our differences as couples and individuals just as much as they demonstrate our similarities. This isn't an earth-shaking book, but a warm and very human exploration, phrased around one of the most basic of experiences: the sharing of food.

-- wiredweird

I rarely write book reviews unless I really loved the book and want to spend the time :). I bought this on the day of my wedding in a Santa Barbara B&Noble and finished it a couple of weeks later.....I loved how this is so true to life. My eating life has changed so much and in so many ways after I started living together with the guy and this book captured the spirit of it so well. And so different the regular chick lit genre (ugh)...Please read if you want to read an intelligent, well written book....

Full disclosure: I happen to know the author and her husband. Not well, but enough that you should take this review with a pinch of salt. Preferably French sea salt harvested from pristine Atlantic seawater and dried under an early summer sun.

So the book is Rich. And about his marriage to Michelle. It is also tasty, satisfying, hearty, sweet but not cloying, nourishing but not heavy. It is definitely food for thought and reflection, especially if you are considering marriage or that fourth bowl of pork fried rice.

It is a book to be read with a full heart, but not an empty stomach. The inspired recipes and thoughtful commentary will leave you grinning - but starving.

Who should read this book? Food lovers. Lovers in general. Anyone who salivates while reading the following words: sriracha, anisette, prosciutto, soba, profiteroles, pappardelle, scallions, rabbit ragu, pasta e fagioli.

Sidenote - if you love New York City or have dreamed of living there, this book will give you insight in a context you've probably never considered.

You know when you're sitting at a restaurant, staring blankly at the menu, trying to decide between the house special or the one scrawled in chalk out front? This is that moment. Go with the easy, the reliable, the tried and true? No, be adventurous! This is the one - fresh, new, delicious. Don't look back. Get it and revel in your choice, savor every morsel. Drink it in. Slurp it down. And then rave about it to all of your friends.

*urp*

The Gastronomy of Marriage is fantastic! It takes you through the journey of two people from diverse cultures with different backgrounds falling in love and uncovering commonalities through food, laughter, and love. It is descriptive, making you feel as if you are standing in the kitchen stirring, adding spices, cooking, smelling, feeling the same way as the author portrays it. I will definitely try out some of the recipes included throughout the book. An inspiring, enlightening story that you can relate to in many instances. Two thumbs up!

This is a beautiful, sweet, funny yet somehow also deep story about romantic love (with thoughts about a "modern marriage" and shared domestic duties circling through the author's head), a love for food and cooking, friendships, and reflections on parental love and influences. The writing is lovely and clever and a pleasure to read. Throughout the book I smiled, I cried, I pondered, and I wanted to go to New York... And despite not at all being a foodie it inspired me to cook! Recipes are incorporated in to the story, and you might just get inspired as well...

Michelle Maisto's quirky and humorous autobiography was truly a breath of fresh air to read. She questions the challenging aspects of relationships and marriage, often related to food, that people usually overlook. She gives an honest perspective on the transitions from singledom to couple to marriage. I found myself laughing hysterically within the first few pages and getting sucked right into the book. It spoke to me in a palpable way that I know all my girlfriends would appreciate. For as she describes, so many of the intrinsic aspects of relationships that we overlook, are those that shape us the most and determine the fate of our connections with others. I fell in love with the day=to-day descriptions of her meals, the recipes, and the inner dialogue that accompanied them from vision through creation.
Always seeking approval as a young adult, and wanting to satisfy everyone that surrounds us, is a constant and often frustrating and/or rewarding challenge that Michelle examines in her own life. I think in this futuristic time in which we live, where gender roles and ethnic divisions are all broken down around us, it is often difficult to navigate through this new terrain of existence, especially in a relationship, where there is no instruction manual or previously set path to follow. WIth this said, the Gastronomy of Marriage shows us that we can forge our own traditions, perhaps through trial and error, but that in the end, satisfation will come from a sense of knowing that we tried to do our best with the knowledge we have gained throughout our life, and that we succeed in being true to ourselves, while still being sensitive and thoughtful to the demands and desires of those people who sit around the table with us that we love most.

Thanks Michelle for your very honest and personal writing. It is a total inspiration, and makes the written word on a lazy Sunday something that I still treasure...

This is the perfect book for food aficionados in love... Michelle pours all of her hopes and worries about engagement, marriage and beyond into a sweet and touching book that you'll no doubt re-read a few times and not just for the mouth watering recipes. This book sits in my kitchen, on hand in case of an impromptu dinner party.

In this wonderful memoir of dating, combining households and preparing meals, Michelle takes the reader through the path of her thoughts which intersect life, love and food. I picked up this book to read on my daily commute because of it's delightlful cover and "blurb". Although I started it on my commute, I couldn't put the book down and finished it in 2 days. It's one you will want to keep handy, though, as it's filled with delicious recipes!!

I think it was the zucchinis that first caught my eye - blushing oh so brightly as they cuddle up to each other. The word `memoir' inspired me to read the back cover. Then there were the factors that encouraged me to pull some pennies out of my pockets: it's about marriage, it's about food, and it's based in New York. Translation: I'll get to relate to someone about married life, maybe pick up a few cooking tips, and live vicariously through the characters' urban adventures (yes, I feel sorry for myself for living in the burbs)...

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