A BRACINGLY ORIGINAL, BOUNDARY BREAKING EXPLORATION OF COOKING AND THE KITCHEN, FROM A RISING STAR IN FOOD WRITING This work by Rebecca May Johnson is not only and introspective look at her life but also at how a humble sauce recipe has developed through the different stages of her life. At times this feels like a recitation. But it’s so much more than that. Small Fires is part memoir, part critical (academic) essay, part love story, part feminist lit, part bildungsroman, part classical text, and part ode, and that’s what I loved most: Johnson’s homage to the sauce recipe central to her work of nonfiction. I didn’t make any changes. My editor at Pushkin loved the weirdest bits the most. I was expecting to be told off; I sent them a much weirder book than I said I was going to write. This joyful, revelatory work of memory and meditation both complicates and electrifies life in the kitchen. The ‘lovely’ chapter also draws into focus this book’s engagement with The Odyssey. And it does make academia’s general failure to take recipes seriously as texts or histories seem absolutely almost impossible to comprehend, a recipe being a catalogue of the ways in which people interact with the land (and supply chains) accessible to them, and the ways in which, through effort and combination, they sought to transform and transcend those limitations. Which is where I think, in the recipe’s smallness and (seeming) simplicity, the ‘epic’ truly enters.

Small Fires - An Epic in the Kitchen by Rebecca May Johnson

When it gets to the point of being written down, it’s a form of knowledge that is trying to empower many people to do something. It’s not a text that is jealously guarded; you write it down because you want to spread knowledge. You want to empower many hands to come to a realization of how they can transform matter in their everyday lives and give themselves pleasure and give other people pleasure — I think that’s amazing. Small Fires reinvents cooking – that simple act of rolling up our sleeves, wielding a knife, splattering red hot sauce on our books – as a way of experiencing ourselves and the world. Cooking is thinking: about the liberating constraint of tying apron strings; the meaning of appetite and bodily pleasure; the wild subversiveness of the recipe; the power of small fires burning everywhere. Stuff doesn’t get published with the conservative expectations of what food writing is and isn’t. It’s really cool to work somewhere where there’s latitude to push beyond those expectations and to bring my own interests as a reader to commissioning and to pay people a dignified amount of money to do that work. very enjoyable and thought-provoking, especially the parts where cooking is not being compared too heavily to rilke poems or the odyssey (we get it, you have a phd, but you don't see me comparing the cooking of pasta to poetic dialogue in the work of pernette du guillet!)The spatter of sauce in a pan, a cook’s subtle deviation from a recipe, the careful labour of cooking for loved ones: these are not often the subjects of critical enquiry. Cooking, we are told, has nothing to do with serious thought; the path to intellectual fulfilment leads directly out of the kitchen. Did i miss smth lol? Why is the general consensus so positive? This book came across as pretentious, grasping at straws of vague arguments that appear—miraculously—out of nowhere. The whole spiel about the misogyny of the word lovely in relation to recipe writing was mind numbing, as well as the random mini essay about misogyny in translation inexplicably crammed in amongst the blabbering about ‘lovely’ and ‘maid.’ I suppose because my academic expertise is in the philosophy of translation of texts this part was especially eye-rolling. Spattering is not mentioned in the recipe. The text does not anticipate the liveliness of the process it describes, which spatters wildly" I requested Small Fires from NetGalley because of the description of this shorter novel, and so I express my deep gratitude to whomever wrote the blurb as it is in no way misleading or misfocused.

Small Fires,’ Rebecca May Johnson Rethinks - Eater In ‘Small Fires,’ Rebecca May Johnson Rethinks - Eater

Small Fires is a book about cooking. But no, like, it is *about* *cooking*. As in, it is about the specificity of cooking, or, no, the universality of cooking? Or no I think it is actually, literally, about how cooking and recipes contain the means to be specific and universal at the same time - which is an almost unique, or at least very unusual and remarkable, operation that tends to get glossed over, and so proves worthy of an extended study. This book will make you hungry! The food writing is extremely evocative, Rebecca May Johnson is very gifted in this department and reading it not only made me very hungry, but made me specifically crave what she was writing about. The chapter detailing the many times she has made a certain recipe throughout her life was an absolute joy to read and I will no doubt be attempting the same recipe since I can't get it out of my head! In Small Fires, Rebecca May Johnson reinvents cooking – that simple act of rolling up our sleeves, wielding a knife, spattering red hot sauce on our books – as a way of experiencing ourselves and the world. Cooking isthinking: about the liberating constraint of tying apron strings; the transformative dynamics of shared meals; the meaning of appetite and bodily pleasure; the wild subversiveness of the recipe, beyond words or control. rebecca may johnson's somewhat jilted prose took me some time to appreciate, eventually evolving into a methodical rhythm much like cook book recipes. smalls fires was truly a perfect blend of johnson cooking her favourite dishes, weaving in feminist theory and relating her life experiences to the food we cook for others and the idea of food being a vehicle for a gendered 'labour' of love (all physically, socially and emotionally). food truly took the front seat of this memoir and it felt, throughout, like a guide to loving both, food, and the work you do for others, and yourself.Can I only appreciate cooking through the imagination of the other...I have been dependent on living through the appetites and desires of others. Alone I am so lost" In this electrifying, innovative memoir, Rebecca May Johnson rewrites the kitchen as a vital source of knowledge and revelation. Drawing on insights from ten years spent thinking through cooking, she explores the radical openness of the recipe text, the liberating constraint of apron strings and the transformative intimacies of shared meals. One of the most original food books I’ve ever read, at once intelligent and sensuous, witty, provoking and truly delicious.” -- Olivia Laing Rebecca May Johnson: It genuinely was a moment of revelation in my life. When I first made this recipe, I was living on my own, I was early on in college. It caused a transformation in perspective and it gave me a sense of competence: an unalienating process; the thrill of being able to transform ingredients. It became the foundational grammar for all cooking that followed it, like when you can suddenly understand a language. Perempuan yang mengaku sebagai ibu rumah tangga seringkali diberi tanggapan "ah, cuma ngurus rumah doang". Tapi, emang pekerjaan rumah tangga semudah itu ya?