Always Home: A Daughter's Recipes & Stories: Foreword by Alice Waters

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is beautifully written. Initially I purchased this book because I'm a fan of her mother, famed chef, restaurateur Alice Waters and the owner of the farm to table institution Chez Panisse. While I enjoyed reading about Waters’ interesting quirks and behind the scenes of Chez Panisse, I loved reading about Fanny’s upbringing and travels. South of France sounds like a dream. Fanny is fantastic at describing smells and scenery.We are around the same age and I am from the San Francisco Bay Area, I grew up 27 miles away from Berkeley in the East Bay Area so it was exciting to read about familiar territory. I also took notes on places to visit in the North Bay like Bolinas and Inverness in Marin County. I am excited to try new recipes. This is the perfect escapist read during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pictures are beautiful too!

Beautifully written in a style that's open, just seems to be natural to Fanny Singer to share memories in such a candid way. She's a very good story teller, you begin to feel you've met the characters she grew up with. For those of us who've been lucky enough to have dined many times at Chez Panisse and the Cafe, a whole life unknown to us within the restaurant Family begins to come alive. It's charming, funny, full of love and really good food. I just love this book.

The book started out great, just seemed to falter a bit as pretty obviously the author was trying to fill pages. Still, I enjoyed it.

As her chef/food activist mother Alice Waters writes in the foreword, Always Home by Fanny Singer is "a story about the universal power of real food--how it knits us together, and how deeply our lives....can be enriched by the ways in which we nourish ourselves." Ever since my college years I have loved visiting Chez Panisse in Berkeley. Eating at Chez Panisse is a sensual experience not just a tasty meal, and Singer's story draws the reader into Waters’ visionary spirit. “The first guests arrive to the scent of woodsmoke and grilling bread...the handmade mozzarella still warm from the brine, the splash of green olive oil.... “ So much of what Singer relays about herself and Waters, resonates with my own values for fresh organic and sustainably raised food items, a European sensibility in food prep and decor, and an appreciation for aesthetic beauty, art, love and human connection. (I wanted to send her a list of songs and pieces to play while preparing and eating her food to complete the sensory engagement!) This book inspired me to take more time with my own food preparation. Some of the included recipes I skipped over (sadly I can’t eat sugar), but most were very enlightening. Singer gives the whys and hows of her recipes so that they make sense in a context. I can't wait to try roasting a chicken and making a lobster salad according to her instructions. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in how people connect through food.

I bought this book and came across the same problem so many other people mention in their reviews. People don't speak like this in real life, and the occasional word here and there would be one thing, but this is written in a style where it seems as if it's trying to impress with word choice rather than convey a narrative you can empathize with and go along for the ride on. I'm sure this wasn't the author's intention, and perhaps it comes out of this being her first effort, but it's a bit off-putting and hard to take. Though the book was not inexpensive, I really couldn't stick with it as the tone created by this choice of words issue over and over got in the way of what the author was probably trying to convey. As a result, I didn't care and didn't finish.

I loved absolutely everything about this book. If you are a fan of Alice Waters, then you are, automatically, a fan of her daughter, Fanny Singer. A lovely memoir about growing up in the glow of one of our most revered chefs and founder of Chez Panisse. Frequent visits to France add to the flavor of the author's offerings as she imparts the specifics of an unusual upbringing by a loving and creative "family" of biological relatives and close friends. As a bonus, recipes are included! I can attest to the divine success of roasting a chicken as per the instructions given on page 57. There are beautiful photographs, as well. This book will forever reside within my library of cookbooks.

What struck me first was the feel of the book. It's got real weight. There was real thought put into how this book feels in your hands. The paper also has a pleasing quality. Maybe it's the tooth of the paper grain. What also struck me were the gorgeous photos within the book. They show up throughout like a family friend dropping by the house. The fact that the photos are in black and white enhances rather than diminished their intimacy. The book feels like a family album of sorts. In fact, it's hard to say what genre this book belongs in. This to me is part of what makes Always Home special. It reads like a memoir, with stories about food and family leading the narrative. Fanny's voice is considered and intimate and inviting. I love the photo 3/4 of the way into the book that reminds me of "The Last Supper." Home has been such a complicated theme since what I call the Plague Year. We've been stuck at home, or trying to find our way home, or grappling with what it means to be home, in ourselves, with others, ever since the world more or less shut down. Any book that helps us feel more at home with those who are close to us and perhaps even ourselves is as valuable as it gets these days. Try this one.

great product, speedy delivery!

Black and white, hard to distinguish recipes from all the chapters

It's beautifully written and creates a lovely atmosphere. But this is undermined by the printing of the photographs - why are they not in colour? This gives a miserable austerity-feel to what is actually a life-affirming cookbook/memoir. The pictures give no incentive to make the recipes. Such a shame - this lovely book is really spoiled by this!