Share <Embed>

Buy New

$18.60

List Price: $25.00
Save: $6.40 (26%)

FREE Shipping on orders with at least $25 of books.

Only 6 left in stock (more on the way).

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser

Buy Used

$5.49

FREE Shipping on orders over $25.

Used: Good | Details

Sold by Jenson Books Inc

Fulfilled by Amazon

Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See all 3 images

Life From Scratch: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Forgiveness Hardcover – March 3, 2015

by Sasha Martin (Author)

127 customer reviews

See all 13 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$9.99

—

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$18.60

$4.74

$0.99

Paperback

"Please retry"

$10.18

$5.99

$2.00

Audible, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$0.00

Free with your Audible trial

MP3 CD, Audiobook, MP3 Audio

"Please retry"

$29.95

—

Witty, warm, and poignant, food blogger Sasha Martin's memoir about cooking her way to happiness and self-acceptance is a culinary journey like no other.

Over the course of 195 weeks, food writer and blogger Sasha Martin set out to cook—and eat—a meal from every country in the world. As cooking unlocked the memories of her rough-and-tumble childhood and the loss and heartbreak that came with it, Martin became more determined than ever to find peace and elevate her life through the prism of food and world cultures. From the tiny, makeshift kitchen of her eccentric, creative mother, to a string of foster homes, to the house from which she launched her own cooking adventure, Martin's heartfelt, brutally honest memoir reveals the power of cooking to bond, to empower, and to heal—and celebrates the simple truth that happiness is created from within.

"This beautifully written book is both poignant and uplifting. Not to mention delicious. It's an amazing family tale that reminds me of The Glass Castle, but with more food. And not just any food: We're talking cinnamon raisin pizza." —A.J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically

"Life From Scratch is an unconventional love story. This beautiful book begins with the quest of cooking a meal from every country—a noble feat of it's own!—but then turns it into something far beyond a kitchen adventure. Be prepared to be changed as you experience Sasha's journey for yourself." —Chris Guillebeau, author of The Happiness Pursuit

Life From Scratch: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Forgiveness

$18.60 FREE Shipping on orders with at least $25 of books. Only 6 left in stock (more on the way). Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Frequently Bought Together

Total price: $39.69

One of these items ships sooner than the other. Show details

Buy the selected items together

This item:Life From Scratch: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Forgiveness by Sasha Martin Hardcover $18.60
Only 6 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details
Go Set a Watchman: A Novel by Harper Lee Hardcover $21.09
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Jessica Fechtor

131

Hardcover
$16.42
Sally Hepworth

210

Hardcover
$22.09
Pam Anderson

45

Hardcover
Jessica Fechtor

131

Paperback
$9.75
Susan Herrmann Loomis

50

Hardcover
$18.83
Megan Kimble

62

Paperback
$11.77

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Poignant, heartwarming and generously filled with delicious recipes." --Kirkus Reviews

"Food had long provided the few happy moments in Martin’s life...These moments may not be enough to satiate the appetite of foodie readers who are looking for lush bite-by-bite writing, but there is plenty here to engross memoir lovers." -Publisher's Weekly

"Martin peppers this memoir with recipes reflective of her life’s circumstances of the moment, from stuffed artichokes to apple pie. Her assured prose endows this narrative of an atypical upbringing with both immediacy and poignancy. " - Booklist

"Many readers will relate to the ways that Life from Scratch connects food and family." --Shelf Awareness

"Sasha Martin intended to publish what’s called a stunt memoir....Thankfully, her memoir, Life From Scratch is not that book. It has more in common with The Glass Castle than it does with 300 Sandwiches: A Multilayered Love Story . . . with Recipes, though it does include recipes." --Washington Post

"While a taste of food from around the world would have been delicious enough, the memoir that Martin ultimately wrote is far more satisfying." --Tulsa Kids

"Sasha Martin’s beautiful memoir-cum-cookbook... makes for ideal summer escapism. Martin’s memoir will find resonance in anyone who’s found that the art of cooking can be as much an emotional experience as a sensory one." --Scribd.com

About the Author

SASHA MARTIN is an award-winning writer and blogger who spent almost four years cooking her way around the world. Her work has been featured on NPR (Travel with Rick Steves), Whole Living, Bon Appetit, The Smithsonian, The Huffington Post, CNNgo, and Food52. Her website, Global Table Adventure, is a go-to hub for foodies around the world.

NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE

Start reading Life From Scratch: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Forgiveness on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Product Details

Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: National Geographic (March 3, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1426213743
ISBN-13: 978-1426213748
Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1.2 x 9.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (127 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #206,953 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #347 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Cooking Education & Reference > Essays
- #347 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Culinary
- #2340 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Regional & International

Related Media

Customer Reviews

127

4.3 out of 5 stars

5 star		59%
4 star		25%
3 star		10%
2 star		3%
1 star		3%

Write a customer review

See all verified purchase reviews

Top Customer Reviews

Each bite

BywoganTOP 500 REVIEWERon January 12, 2015

Format: HardcoverVine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

Sasha Martin writes this book to describe her determination to cook and have her family eat a meal from every country in the world. She works on this project, which she depicts in her blog for 195 weeks. Her work is cut out for her since her husband is a picky eater with several absolute dislikes and her daughter is a young infant.

What her story becomes, more than a cooking exhibition is a story of a troubled life full of rejection and most of all a search and hunger for peace of mind.
Her mother is eccentric and when she and her brother are young her mother works sewing in their apartment, even though she would be able to be qualified as a teacher. Sasha has 3 other siblings which her mother gave custody to their father when they divorced. Their love is mutual, but their mother's extreme behavior leads school officials to call social services. Sasha and her brother are tossed back and forth until their mother gives guardianship of them to her friend who moves frequently around the world. It seems that the friends wanted a son and Sasha is extra baggage.

The story is hard and we are privy to her angst and sorrows and tragedies. We also learn some of her mother's recipes and more of Sasha's. There are 29 included. Many have exotic ingredients and are quite complicated. At one point Sasha suffers from cyanide poisoning from cassava. She changes her recipe in her blog but does not warn readers of the dangers of improper preparation.
However, within the pages is a meat sauce recipe that is marvelous as well as an orange chicken and a dark chocolate Guinness cake with Bailey's buttercream icing.

Sash learns and imparts her lessons, both in cooking and in life. There is a need and a joy in community.
Those who enjoy stories of cooking and are interested in reading stories of a family caught in a struggle to accept themselves and discover a good life might enjoy this book.

0Comment 21 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

A wonderful read!

ByMike WallaceVINE VOICEon January 7, 2015

Format: HardcoverVine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

I loved this book. Sasha Martin is a blogger, a wonderful writer and an excellent story teller. Not to mention an experienced cook. This book captured my attention immediately as it launched into the story of her childhood and memories of her mother making due with what she had.

Martin's narrative of her childhood and her memories of her mother become even more interesting as she starts to fill in the blanks with some family backstory. Her ability to bring her childhood memories to life is a credit to her ability as a writer.

There are also recipes. I loved the first crepe recipe, which reminded me of my mother's crepe recipe. We would gather around the kitchen while my mom meticulously cooked each thin little pancake and then we would eat them with syrup and butter. Memories of food have a way of bringing our past to life. I think this is why I enjoyed this book so much.

This is a fun read and it is never boring. It even brings up questions about life, and decisions, and how choices affect our history and the people we have in our lives. This is a unique history with an emphasis on food and how it affects our lives and memories.

0Comment 14 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Perfect read for global foodies and parents of kids in the system

Bysssnooon March 8, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I have followed Sasha's blog since she was in the B's of the alphabet. I looked forward to her posts every week; they became part of the rythm of my life. I cooked many of the recipes from her blog, from the easy to the complex (home made mole anyone?). Some have made it into our regular rotations. I remember one country in a particularly vivid way - Samoa. As Sasha recounted stories of her mother's life my curiosity was piqued. I realized that Sasha had a story to tell and I am so glad she has done so. I preordered the book and eagerly read it from start to finish this week, neglecting so many chores. I loved it. Thank you Sasha for sharing this memoir. This book will not only resonate with global foodies, but also with those parenting children from disrupted families. My family is big and complex, formed by birth and adoption and full of complexity. My husband and I now provide respite care to foster children. I appreciated so much hearing Sasha's account from the child's side - especially now that she is a woman survivor - one with a high level of self knowledge. It isn't often we get to hear the child's version of experiences with foster placements, being victimized by family court, and then trying to attach, forgive and survive. It is even less often the story has a happy ending. It took a great deal of courage to share such a personal accounting. Thank you Sasha for sharing your story. Also thanks to your mother for supporting you in telling the story, that took just as much courage.

Also - I am not sure what some reviewers were expecting based on the National Geographic summary - I found it very accurate. The book is exactly as described.
"It was a culinary journey like no other: Over the course of 195 weeks, food writer and blogger Sasha Martin set out to cook—and eat—a meal from every country in the world. As cooking unlocked the memories of her rough-and-tumble childhood and the loss and heartbreak that came with it, Martin became more determined than ever to find peace and elevate her life through the prism of food and world cultures. From the tiny, makeshift kitchen of her eccentric, creative mother to a string of foster homes to the house from which she launches her own cooking adventure, Martin’s heartfelt, brutally honest memoir reveals the power of cooking to bond, to empower, and to heal—and celebrates the simple truth that happiness is created from within."

0Comment 7 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Customer Images

See all customer images

Most Recent Customer Reviews

Insulting to Eccentrics, Annoying to Those Who Appreciate Good Grammar

There is a difference between being an eccentric mother and being a mentally ill, neglectful mother who continually shows poor judgment.Read more

Published 7 months ago by MandyRose1019

A must read for food lovers and global adventurers!

I came across the Global Table Adventure website based on a recommendation from another global site and as soon as I saw it, I knew Sasha Martin was on a mission after my own...Read more

Published 1 year ago by Andrea Costantine

The story was interesting to a point. In my ...

The story was interesting to a point. In my opinion it didn't compare with the Glass Castle. For the most part, the recipies weren't anything that would make you want to run out...Read more

Published 1 year ago by Betty

Is happiness the sizzle in the pan?

One of my wife's favourite books of the year. She devoured it. Cried. Cooked. She loved it.

You can get a taste just from the prologue: "Everything depends on the...Read more

Published on February 2, 2015 by Dave English

Did I Mention That I Hate Memoirs?

To be completely honest, I wanted this to be more about the food. While there are recipes here, and food and cooking are an important backdrop, this is largely a memoir of the...Read more

Published on February 6, 2015 by OutlawPoet

amazing. The way you describe food is breathtaking

This book is gorgeous. Sasha Martin, you're writing is unlike anything I've ever read. I cried through most of this book, but the way you so eloquently captured emotions, amazing.Read more

Published 1 year ago by Christina Caballero

It was a distraction in her childhood and something that reminded her in a good way of the more positive aspects of her mother

I found this book to be more than I thought it would be when I selected it --- more in that it is certainly not just a collection of instructions on how to cook dishes from...Read more

Published on January 29, 2015 by Ms Winston

More of a weepy, melancholic memoir then the epicurean journey the book is marketed as

First and foremost this book is an autobiographical memoir from food blogger Sasha Martin that chronicles the entirety of her life starting with her early childhood and...Read more

Published on January 15, 2015 by Sibelius

Interesting premise.

Good book for a foodie. Many culturally diverse recipes. A also tells an amazing story of the authors life from childhood to parenthood in her own right.Read more

Published 1 year ago by Julie Hall

Amazing! You'll love the stories and the recipes.

I have been waiting for this book ever since I started reading Sasha's Global table 4 years ago. Being from Tulsa myself I thought it was really amazing to know someone local was...Read more

Published 1 year ago by Ellen Fizer

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway

This item: Life From Scratch: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Forgiveness

Set up a giveaway