Dinner with Edward
By Isabel Vincent
Algonquin Books
Retail Price: $23.95
Amazon Price: $14.25

Book Description:  When Isabel meets Edward, both are at a crossroads: he wants to follow his late wife to the grave, and she is ready to give up on love. Thinking she is merely helping Edward’s daughter–who lives far away and has asked her to check in on her nonagenarian dad in New York–Isabel has no idea that the man in the kitchen baking the sublime roast chicken and light-as-air apricot soufflé will end up changing her life.

As Edward and Isabel meet weekly for the glorious dinners that Edward prepares, he shares so much more than his recipes for apple galette or the perfect martini, or even his tips for deboning poultry. Edward is teaching Isabel the luxury of slowing down and taking the time to think through everything she does, to deconstruct her own life, cutting it back to the bone and examining the guts, no matter how messy that proves to be.

Dinner with Edward is a book about love and nourishment, and about how dinner with a friend can, in the words of M. F. K. Fisher, “sustain us against the hungers of the world.”

Review

Maybe it is the fact that I am well into mid-life and my parents have aged and I am dealing with the reality of loneliness after death, but this book reached deep into my very soul.
It is touching, heart-felt, and endearing. It makes you realize just how precious life is and how important it is to cultivate friendships both now and as we age. This book is well written and the story is laid out in such a fashion that it is easy to follow. I liked that the chapters were short, which made it flow easily.  The characters were life-like and very approachable.  You took them into your heart and made them friends.  They were intellectual and charming.  If you are a foodie, you will love the food parts of the book as they are described in such a way that you may find yourself heading for the kitchen yourself.  This book was a pleasure to read and it touched my heart.  It will stay with you long after you read it.

~Reviewed by Rosie B.