Crazy in the Kitchen

"Illuminate[s] the difficulties of reconciling past and present . . . DeSalvo celebrates the table of her ancestors by savoring her own rediscovered history." — New York Times Book Review During Louise DeSalvo's childhood in 1950s New Jersey, the kitchen becomes the site for fierce generational battle. Louise's step-grandmother insists on recreating the domestic habits of her Southern Italian peasant upbringing, clashing with Louise's convenience-food-loving mother; Louise, meanwhile, dreams of cooking perfect fresh pasta in her own kitchen. But as Louise grows up to indulge in amazing food and travels to Italy herself, she arrives at a fuller and more compassionate picture of her own roots. And, in the process, she reveals that our image of the bounteous Italian American kitchen may exist in part to mask a sometimes painful history. "Louise DeSalvo packs about six courses of emotional wallop into her slim memoir . . . [A] tough, courageous story, one of hard-won wisdom and memory." — San Francisco Chronicle