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Kitchen Memories: A Legacy of Family Recipes from Around the World

by Anne Snape Parsons and Alexandra Greeley

Book Description
Memories of grandmother's cooking are warm, inviting, sustaining and comforting, but most people have not taken the time to preserve their family's favorite recipes. As a result, many treasured recipes are lost to the fast-food generation 'overtaken by pizza delivery, eating out and convenience foods. Kitchen Memories aims to slow that trend down with a lovingly compiled collection of 120 family recipes from 25 countries' handed down from one generation to the next and gathered from families and cooks.

The authors, leaders in the Slow Food movement, have interviewed hundreds of people who have shared their most precious recipes, the ones they want to pass on to their children and grandchildren. The process of talking about family recipes triggered many happy memories for the book's contributors, and as such, each recipe includes detailed homespun cooking tips and sidebars rich with personal stories of family and food. Twenty-five countries are featured including the U.S. and some of its distinctive regional and ethnic cuisines. Pages at the end of the book are provided for cooks to preserve their own favorite recipes, thoughts, tips, photos, and memories. The authors have tested all 120 recipes. A helpful glossary and appendix offering a brief sketch of each culture are included. Insatiably curious about traditions and cultures, food and travel writer Anne Parsons is a native of Scotland and has traveled extensively around the globe. During her trips, she spends most of her time with local people, eats regional foods and visits their places of worship. She is currently writing a medieval mystery novel with the spice trade as its focus. Ms. Parsons lives in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina where she is a leader of the Slow Food Convivium of East North Carolina.

About the Authors
Anne Snape Parsons grew up in a large close-knit family in Bothwellpark, Scotland. While literature and cultural pursuits were important, the core of her family's activities was food food as the binding power in family and friendships, food as the intersection between generations, and food as the bridge between cultures. Ms. Parsons has an MA in English Literature, is currently writing two cookbooks, "Seashore Suppers: Edible Reading from the Barefoot Book Clubs of the OBX", and "Cooking, Conversation, and Conviviality: A Year of Slow Eating Events", and is researching material for a civil war journal. Ms. Parsons is a leader of the Slow Food Convivium of East North Carolina, is a member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, and the Culinary Historians of Washington, and writes travel articles and a monthly food column for Tidewater Women called "Around the Table," and food and people articles for the North Beach Sun.

Alexandra Greeley is the former food editor of Vegetarian Times and a well-established Washington, D.C., area food journalist and restaurant critic. Her work has been featured in Gastronomica, Gayot.com, Fine Cooking, Chili Pepper, On The Grill, the New York Times, Long Island Life, the Washington Post, Washingtonian magazine, and Newsday. In addition to the recent Vegetarian Times cookbook, she is the author of "Asian Soups, Stews & Curries"; "Asian Grills"; and "Good Enough to Eat". She has written several mini Asian cookbooks for Periplus publishers in Singapore, written text and edited the recipes for a book/CD package entitled Mexico!, was a staff writer for Time-Life's cookbook series, "Great Meals in Minutes," and was the food editor/writer for the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. Greeley is a member of the culinary groups Les Dames d Escoffier and International Association of Culinary Professionals and is the Washington, D.C., co-leader of Slow Food USA. She lives in Reston, Virginia.