In dynamic, poetic prose, Grant relays the contours of her life.

... a series of vignettes, poetic and spare and powerful, that trace this writer’s life as a chef, a baker, a mother, a partner. I have never been a chef, so I found her passages from that period of her life compelling, but I especially appreciate her portrait of motherhood, including postpartum depression, the specific pain of childbirth, and getting an abortion as a mother of two. And yet it’s not a downer at all..

Sometime the subtitle really does tell it all. In this case, A memoir with recipes is the most succinct yet accurate description of this work; an often raw, stream of consciousness effort, describing the difficulties of being a restaurant line cook and new mother in equally vivid detail.

In a series of short, spare, food-centric bulletins written in the present tense, Grant captures the passions of her life, from the rigorous intensity of her early ambitions to her more manageable present.

Relating the adrenaline-surging hustle in restaurant kitchens, including nauseating moments of sexual harassment, Grant writes with bursting energy.

Grant has written a memoir relatively early in her life. The freshness of her memories from young adulthood make for vivid descriptions of the rights of passage often glossed over by authors with greater distance.

Grant is particularly adept at packing a lot of emotion and detail into a few brief lines.