Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger: A Memoir

Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger: A Memoir - Paperback

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Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger: A Memoir
  • Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger: A Memoir
Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger: A Memoir - Paperback

Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger: A Memoir - Paperback

by Lisa Donovan
$18.00
$18.00

Book Overview

Named a Favorite Book for Southerners in 2020 by Garden & Gun

"Donovan is such a vivid writer--smart, raunchy, vulnerable and funny-- that if her vaunted caramel cakes and sugar pies are half as good as her prose, well, I'd be open to even giving that signature buttermilk whipped cream she tops her desserts with a try."--Maureen Corrigan, NPR

Noted chef and James Beard Award-winning essayist Lisa Donovan helped establish some of the South's most important kitchens, and her pastry work is at the forefront of a resurgence in traditional desserts. Yet Donovan struggled to make a living in an industry where male chefs built successful careers on the stories, recipes, and culinary heritage passed down from generations of female cooks and cooks of color. At one of her career peaks, she made the perfect dessert at a celebration for food-world goddess Diana Kennedy. When Kennedy asked why she had not heard of her, Donovan said she did not know. "I do," Kennedy said, "Stop letting men tell your story."

OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HUNGER is Donovan's searing, beautiful, and searching chronicle of reclaiming her own story and the narrative of the women who came before her. Her family's matriarchs found strength and passion through food, and they inspired Donovan's accomplished career. Donovan's love language is hospitality, and she wants to welcome everyone to the table of good food and fairness.

Donovan herself had been told at every juncture that she wasn't enough: she came from a struggling southern family that felt ashamed of its own mixed race heritage and whose elders diminished their women. She survived abuse and assault as a young mother. But Donovan's salvations were food, self-reliance, and the network of women in food who stood by her.

In the school of the late John Egerton, OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HUNGER is an unforgettable Southern journey of class, gender, and race as told at table.
ISBN9780525560968
Author Lisa Donovan
PublisherPenguin Books
GenreBiography and Food & cooking
FormatPaperback
PublishedAugust 2021
LanguageENG- English
Pages304
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

Biography & Autobiography Cooking Nonfiction

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About Lisa Donovan

Lisa Donovan, Ph.D., is a professor in the Fine and Performing Arts Department at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. Previously, she served as Lesley University's Director of the Creative Arts in Learning Division. Dr. Donovan has published widely and presented across the country and internationally on arts integration, rural arts education, and arts integration assessment. She is the 2021 Recipient of the Massachusetts ArtsLearning Irene Buck Service to Arts Education Award.

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