Every story and accompanying recipe was a breath of fresh air and touched not only my heart, but my stomach. Every writer had a way with words and wrote a biographical story that centered on food that had an impact on some aspect of their lives. At the end of the story the recipe is included. The recipes range from complicated to simple - something for every occasion. Broken into four parts: growing pains, loss, healing, and homecoming - famous, well respected, and award winning authors share stories that will stick with readers. A great gift for any foodie in your life. I plan on storing this with my cookbooks and trying out some of the recipes - a fantastic collection! ( )

It makes me sad to say it, particularly given how lovely the illustrations are, but I found this book to be disappointing. For starters, it is misnamed. I have read many books about the joyful connections people make with food, and they are usually amazing, euphoric tales that talk about family and magical experiences, transporting the reader into the experience. However the stories in this book were not so much about joy, as about grief. The subtitle of the book is "Stories and Comfort Food," and most of the stories were using food as a source of comfort. Which is fine. But expecting joy and getting sadness is quite the letdown. A better title would have been, "Eat Comfort." Secondly, the end of the book notes that seven of the 31 stories had been previously published elsewhere, and those include writings by some of the best known authors. That left me feeling a bit cheated....why buy this book if the stories I want to read can be found elsewhere? And finally, we all know that comfort food is often simple and childlike, but foodies may find the recipes more disappointing than clever...the book included three different recipes for variations on plain white rice, one for boxed macaroni and cheese with hot dogs, and one that suggested mixing water with boxed brownie mix, then eating raw with one's fingers. ( )

This might be the most misnamed book ever. For a book ostensibly about food and joy, it's awfully depressing. Food as a link to a refugee's past; as a balm for illness, as consolation in times of heartbreak, depression, an grief; as a way to salvage a broken relationship, to comfort a dying man, a divorcee alone in his apartment -- there isn't one story here that speaks to joy. Food connected to the sorrow of dealing with Alzheimer's, accompaniment to cremating a father, to remind one of the sad passage of time, of dealing with bullying - these are meaningful tales, but joyless.