This evocatively written book is a meditation on life, cooking, kitchens and relationships. I was touched by the author's honesty and her discerning and reflective eye. It's the kind of book that becomes, like a good friend, someone who is not afraid to speak the truth and share their vision of life, warts, joys and all.

The book does not read like a linear story but is rather like a poem where the ebb and flow of images and reflections transports the reader into the author's memory. That place where stories, sensations and the touchstones of experience are lodged. What is wonderful about this book is that the author's approach triggers memories in the reader so that the reader feels they're a member of an extended 'Kitchen Congregation'.

I enjoyed meeting Ida, Senta, Cynthia, Molly, Laura, Dr Rodgers, visitors in Seton's kitchen. Because Seton generously shares her memories, the reader feels that they have known these visitors too.

Whereas speed and convenience reign in this modern age, Seton's book reasserts the importance of the kitchen as a place to prepare, nurture, reflect upon, and experiment with, not only the cooking of meals but also,life's journey. My only criticism of the book is that I found the author's use of imagery and metaphor a little overdone at times. But all in all, a book to be savoured and experienced many times over. Beautiful!

We (women) recreate our childhoods in our kitchens. We bring to it everything we remember as good, pushing the bad and unhappy aside. It is where we gather, not to cook like the "little hommaker" but to nuture and to nourish. Nora Seton has drawn together some remarkable memories of her mother, intertwined with stories of friendships and insights gleaned during time in other kitchens, as well as her own. Friendship with Senta, the older woman who invokes angels to assist her, and who accompanies the author through one of life's most difficult journeys. Ida, sharing hard won insight into the precarious balances struck by women and men. Seton writes of a good friend contemplating divorce. Much of what is important in life is discussed as she moves through the comforting, numbing, sustaining work in her kitchen. Friends gather at the table, gaining physical sustanance. More importantly, they sustain one another, continuing a thread established by others long ago....women gathered in the kitchen. Meals are prepared,regrets expressed,dreams unfurl and unravel, recepies for food and life are shared, husbands analysed, lives discussed, children intrude and are gathered in, we tend to rehearse amd inspect what is most precious in tandem with the mundane. Never is Seton more elequent, then when writing about loss. The loss of a parent, a child, the bloom of love, the tolerence of marriage,the dreams of youth, all these are brought to the table in distilled form, after simmering over a low flame, stirring and tending, until the clarity remains. Nora Seton has crafted a remarkable book of her continuing journey in the kitchen, seeking sustanance. I was moved and comforted by what the book brought to me (it also sent me looking for the novels her mother wrote, a wonderful tribute).

I read much of it on an airplane, and cried (discretely) throughout. The guy sitting next to me thought I had a stinking cold. This is a chicken soup for the soul book. Filled with warm textural stories within stories. I am a "hard sell" when it comes to books like these...don't like to be told how I should be feeling, and I think Nora did a good job of leaving us to decide for ourselves. Not a lot of the common childhood "let me drivel about what happened to me when I was a kid" trauma-shocker type stuff that I run across a lot in contemporary novels like this, and I appreciate that Nora chose not to go there with this book. It is a very finely CRAFTED book. I noticed how carefully every word was selected - much like picking just the right peaches for your Mom's peach pie recipe. -A wonderful tribute to her own mother, and a clear sign of good things to come from Nora.