How to Share an Egg

Starred review from November 11, 2024
Journalist and chef Reichert debuts with a mesmerizing memoir about grappling with depression and growing up as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. The youngest child in a tranquil Edmonton household, Reichert spent blissful afternoons cooking with her grandmother, accompanying her father to the restaurants he owned, and testing out her own recipes. “Food was everything,” Reichert writes. “I knew it was delicious and I knew it was precious.” The flip side of Reichert’s sunny upbringing, however, was an unrelenting pressure to be happy, and a deep sense of shame whenever she struggled to contain her fear or sadness: “Life was painted with almost too much color in an effort to brighten what had come before.” After eating borscht on a trip to Warsaw as an adult, Reichert was moved to investigate her father’s time in Auschwitz and to unpack how the experience shaped his—and by extension her—love of food and obsession with joy. Recounting major meals and events in her life, from a bumpy marriage to her decision to become a chef, Reichert weaves a rich narrative tapestry that traces her journey toward self-knowledge in luminous prose. Nimble and nourishing, this is not to be missed. Agent: Michelle Tessler, Tessler Literary.