Kitchen Bliss: Musings on Food and Happiness

Kitchen Bliss is part memoir and part cookbook where Laura Calder shares many recipes and personal stories about how food and cooking have impacted her life. I will admit that I'm not one to follow celebrity chefs or cookbook authors so when the publisher sent me this surprise book mail, I was excited to be introduced to this James Beard Foundation award-winning author.

Through personal anecdotes with bits of humour, Calder shows readers the importance of slowing down and how the home kitchen and recipes can be so integral in our lives. She reminds us that we should 'eat with intention' which sounds a little woo-woo guru, but I appreciate the importance of listening to your body and thinking about what it needs at that moment instead of inhaling whatever food is put in front of you.

I also liked the message that cooking at home should be comfortable and easy-going and that you don't have to add special ingredients to make it exotic. By simply sticking a can of beer up a chicken's butt and throwing it on the BBQ with some corn-on-the-cob and watermelon for dessert you can make a meal that is as delicious and satisfying as any fancy restaurant meal.

But many of the recipes seem to go against this 'easy-going' vibe and there were a few instances where her observations had an ounce of snoot. I thought many of the recipes were outside typical weeknight family meals - fois gras salad, 'white radicchio and frisée bejeweled with toasted seeds and dressed with a pear vinegar' (from Normandy, no less). Just a bit too froo-froo. I did find a handful of recipes that would appeal to my family which include Fried Potato Skins, Mum's Salad Dressing, Penne alla Vodka, Salted Caramel Ice Cream... 

Kitchen Bliss is a good pick for foodies, and I'm pleased to have found some recipes to try, some amusing anecdotes and appreciate Calder's reminder that recipes and cooking are powerful enough to soothe, inspire and satisfy. 

Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to Simon and Schuster Canada for this advanced copy which was given in exchange for my honest review.

My Rating: 3 stars

Author: Laura Calder

Genre: Nonfiction, Cookbook, Memoir, Canadian

Type and Source: trade paperback from publisher

Publisher: Simon and Schuster Canada

First Published: March 28, 2023

Book Description from GoodReads: James Beard Foundation Award– and Taste Canada Award–winning author Laura Calder is back with Kitchen Bliss , a warm, funny, and pragmatic collection of stories and recipes that reveal how cooking, feeding, and home-keeping can magically restore balance and calm in our out-of-sync lives.

During the years of the global pandemic, Laura Calder, like many home cooks, found herself being drawn into the kitchen and becoming reacquainted with the power that the room can have to restore us when the going gets tough. In Kitchen Bliss , she reflects on how and why the kitchen and the dining table have held such an important place in her life and indeed taught her about happiness.

In her inimitably wise, warm, and quirky voice, she shares stories about everything from her shattered childhood fantasies about Sultana cake, to a gastronomically disastrous camel safari, the perilous vicissitudes of daily dishwashing by hand, and how she identifies (positively, if you can believe it) with ground meat. Stories and musings on Emily Post’s concept of a “Little Dinner” (for eight, a mere bagatelle!), unsatisfying adventures at cooking school, hopeless kitchens and how to cook in them anyway, and the English aversion to warm toast are all accompanied by recipes to soothe, inspire, and delight. Nothing too fancy here, just perfect recipes for dishes like Disgustingly Rich Potatoes, Salted Caramel Ice Cream, Hainanese Chicken Rice, and The Full Quebecois Breakfast. Come for the stories, stay for the food!

Laura has spent her life considering the life-enhancing pleasures of cooking, eating, and feeding. The pandemic gave her a new sense of urgency to share what she has learned. She says, “Life isn’t always a candy shop of delights, pandemic or no pandemic. Often we find ourselves in uncomfortable places and we must learn to create sweetness for ourselves out of whatever it is we’ve got—and that sometimes can seem like nothing but a whole lot of lemons. Well, at least that’s a start! We all know where to find the in the kitchen.”

This is a delightfully entertaining book full of memories, insights, good advice, and humor that will inspire readers to get in the kitchen, tie on an apron, and discover their own form of kitchen bliss.