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Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger: A Memoir
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About Our Lady Of Perpetual Hunger: A Memoir
Product Description 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. Review “With anger, honesty, wit and passion...an impeccable blend of deadpan humor, candor and righteousness, Donovan critiques not only the rampant sexism in haute cuisine, but also the misogyny prevalent in our culture at large, not shying away from depicting her experiences of domestic partner abuse, rape and gender-based pay disparity...Assertive and empowering”— Kathleen Rooney, Star Tribune “Donovan documents her struggles in a male-dominated field, her mixed-race heritage, her own experience with abuse and assault and how she put her life back together through the salvation of food."— Zibby Owens, Good Morning America “Donovan’s story is that of a pastry chef working her way up in an often inhospitable industry, but it’s also about a woman creating her own narrative and grappling with the ways that the choices of the women who came before her—both personally and professionally—affect her life." — Eater "Donovan . . . reveals the struggles and hard-fought lessons that have made her the courageous woman that she is today. . . . [W]ritten in a fierce and visceral style. . . . In a world that all too often credits male chefs for the culinary contributions of women and people of color, [ Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger] is a valuable addition to the culinary memoir canon." — Booklist "Donovan… chronicles her career as a chef and her unrelenting passion for the culinary arts, but she also digs into her family history, offering keen reflections on the intersections of race and gender and spirited discussions of work, class, and opportunity. . . . [ Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger] is not just a lively story of a talented pastry chef at the top of her game; it’s also a profoundly relatable memoir of the pervasive push back against female success. A fresh voice with a recipe for empowerment."— Kirkus "[A] fiesty confessional. . . . Donovan’s candid, passionate memoir will resonate with anyone who has worked in professional kitchens, and particularly women."— Publishers Weekly "Lisa Donovan’s writing ha
