Weekend Cooking: Stir by Jessica Fechtor

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page.

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A few weeks ago my friend Kathy from the blog Bermuda Onion wrote about the memoir Stir by Jessica Fechtor. About 15 minutes after I read her review, I checked a copy out of my library's Overdrive service.

Oh what a story. In a nutshell, at the age of twenty-eight, while at a graduate school conference in Vermont, Fechtor had a burst brain aneurysm while on a treadmill. She was away from home and without her family, but fortunately, friends and colleagues acted fast and got her admitted to the local hospital, which immediately transferred her to a level 1 trauma unit in Stowe.

From there, Fechtor underwent repeated surgeries, battled infections, lost the sight in one eye, temporarily lost her sense of smell, and was required to wear a helmet on her head for almost two years. She underwent therapy, was forced to put her professional life on hold, was told she might not be able to have children, and had many psychological hurdles to clear.

Throughout it all, she was fortunate to have the never-ending support of her family, her husband, her in-laws, and close friends. The other strong element in her life that kept Fechtor motivated and helped her heal was spending time in her beloved kitchen, baking, hosting parties, and feeding those she loves best.

Stir is an emotionally strong memoir with four interwoven paths: Fechtor and her husband's families, their courtship, her accident and recovery, and food and cooking. This is not your typical food memoir. Fechtor didn't travel the world discovering new flavors and ingredients. She didn't find god, love, or miracles in the kitchen.

Stir is, however, ripe with the deep significance of food and cooking: the idea of food as the symbol for life, for moving forward, for growing; the act of cooking as solace, as nurturing, as giving; and the way people are bound together over something as small as an almond cookie that comes in a fancy orange tin.

Get out your tissues because you'll cry with Jessica Fechtor -- sometimes with joy and sometimes with sorrow. Then wash your hands and head to the kitchen and be kind to yourself and your loved ones.

The food: Fechtor included a handful of recipes in Stir and all look wonderful. Many of them can be found on her popular food blog Sweet Amadine, which she started when she was still trying to teach herself how to reenter the world after she was released from the hospital. In 2009, a friend of hers told her to create a food blog to help fill her days, and so Fechtor did. You'll find her story and a ton of delicious recipes there.

I'll leave you with a passage from Stir I love -- one that might change me.

Being sick, it turns out, is an education in the art of guesting. I didn't see it that way at the time, likely because I didn't know that there were important things still to learn. . . .

A good guest allows herself to be hosted. That means saying, "yes, please," when you're offered a cup of tea instead of rushing to get it yourself. It means staying in your chair, enjoying good company and your first glass of wine while your host ladles soup into bowls. . . . To allow her to take care of  you is to allow your host her generosity. I'd always been too distracted by my own desire to be useful to understand this. I got it now.

Published by Avery, 2015
ISBN-13: 9781594631320
Source: borrowed (see review policy)
Copyright © cbl for Beth Fish Reads, all rights reserved (see review policy)