I expected this book to be about food, since the aurhor's blog, Orangette, is my favorite among several I read, and a number of the recipes I have tried, from granola to boiled kale (neither are included in this book, but are available on the Orangette site), now make regular appearances on our table.
As delicious as the recipes are, however, this is not primarily a cookbook. The recipes are a bonus feature in as lovely a book of essays as I remember reading in--well, I think--ever. I don't much like essays, usually, but then I didn't think I'd like boiled kale either, and we're having that once a week now. If you skip the essays and only make the recipes, you'll miss the best of the feast.
Ms. Wizenberg's stories of finding her place have obviously been carefully crafted, with deft imagery, but they are also page-turners. You can't wait to see how each little episode ends, even though you know it ends with a recipe and the subject matter is familiar to us all.
She dusts the ordinary, whether she's writing about dough or death, with a shimmer of something that makes it special.