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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 "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, NPRRenowned southern pastry chef Lisa Donovan's memoir of cooking, survival, and the incredible power in reclaiming the stories of women 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 “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. . . . Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger is about the multiple hungers that Donovan has been driven to satisfy in her life—for wonderful food, certainly, but also for love and community and for gratifying work that can support a family.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR “An absolutely stupendous memoir…defines a philosophy that I value very much: good old American pragmatism—what is most useful is most truthful… She’s an amazing chef, she’s an amazing person, an amazing mom… [Now,] the world will finally get to see what an unbelievable writer she is. She is gifted in ways that most people, even good writers, are not… [Donovan] finally has a platform to let the world know just how talented she is.” — Dave Chang, chef of the Momofuku restaurants and host of “Ugly Delicious” “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 "Like Donovan's famous desse
