- Hardcover: 224 pages
- Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson (1 Jun 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 029764369X
- ISBN-13: 978-0297643692
- Product Dimensions: 20.2 x 13.2 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 993,185 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
At the risk of sounding sexist, it's impossible to imagine a man writing this book. Nora Seton's warm, savoury memoir is unmistakably female in its blend of forthright physical details, painstaking analysis of intricate personal relations and intellectual musings. In this, the author mirrors her beloved mother, novelist Cynthia Propper Seton: "The human spirit required complications, she said, places to go and not go, ascent and descent, stone walls and smooth paths to organise itself. She explained all this while peeling carrots." Writing with downright elegance that always delivers the unexpected phrase or insight, Seton explores the kitchen's meaning for women as the centre of the home--the place where friends gather to drink coffee and share secrets, where children stand on overturned salad bowls to reach knives, where the evening news is absorbed while drinking wine and chopping onions. Seton's memories of her mother's slow death from cancer and the stillbirth of her first child are poignant but never depressing, because she conveys such a palpable sense of life as a process of experiences that may wound or rejoice but always enrich the soul. --Wendy Smith
Product Description
In this beautifully written book Nora Seton writes about the lessons of life learned in a mother's kitchen. Told in tales from the kitchen, the place where women congregate, particularly mothers and daughters, still, after years of broken traditions and new professional opportunities, Nora Seton conveys in dazzling prose the rich dialogues between women, the shared comfort of motherhood, the bewilderment of men, and even favourite recipes - coded love messages handed down through the generations. Through Nora we enter the lives of five women, spanning several generations, all of whom are the beacons of her life. Most prominent is Nora's mother, an intuitive and discerning cook, who died of cancer. This loss and that of the author's first-born daughter are the experiences that have most profoundly affected Nora. In some ways this book is about finding a resting place for those lost loved ones. Moving, honest and extremely heartfelt, The Kitchen Congregation is a book for every mother and every daughter.
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First Sentence
My mother once said that all recipes were launched with a sauteed onion. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
My mother once said that all recipes were launched with a sauteed onion. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fond Memories of Kitchen Life,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Kitchen Congregation (Paperback)
Nora Seton's biography of her family and friens and their relationships with their kitchens oozes with charm. She remembers her mother and how she combined running her home and organising her career from this pivotal room, then links this with her own life and how this has developed around her stove and kitchen, and observing how the generations interact.Part memoir, part social analysis, and part cookery book, the book works both in reading it from beginning to end, and by dipping into the individual vignettes which make up the tale. She also points out a number of truisms, such as the very different ways men and women cook, the problems encountered when cooking in someone else's kitchen, and how women really do seem to take on the characteristics of their mothers, but in such a way as to be a celebration of all these facts. Birth, life and death are all covered in this heart-warming account, written in a style that makes you think that you are in a kitchen being chatted to whilst someone is at work. It leaves you with a warm feeling, almost as though you have just finished eating your favourite home-cooked meal.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful, insightful, inspiring - this book really moved me,
By jo@shep29.fsnet.co.uk (England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Kitchen Congregation (Hardcover)
If you have ever shared a few moments of quiet kitchen companionship with a loved one, this book will mean something to you. This is a book of warm, safe, comforting childhood kitchens and warm, safe, comforting mothers, daughters and friends. This books takes you by surprise - it reaches out to you and keeps you wanting more. I loved it and recommend it highly. Thank you Nora Seton.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Review of the Kitchen Congregation,
By
This review is from: The Kitchen Congregation (Paperback)
The kitchen and its central role in the lives of women is the theme of this beautiful book. Nora Seton paints word-pictures of kitchens which have shaped her life, and the characters of the women and children who pass through them, bringing colour and meaning to one anothers' lives. Connections between past and future, and the joys and sorrows of each stage of life are described with humour and poignancy. This is a beautifully written,evocative book with resonances for so many women.
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