Pen Palate, Lucy Madison
Pen Palate, Lucy Madison
List: $24.98 | Sale: $17.49
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Pen & Palate
Mastering the Art of Adulthood, with Recipes

Author: Lucy Madison, Tram Nguyen

Narrator: Lucy Madison, Tram Nguyen

Unabridged: 6 hr 26 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/31/2016

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included

Synopsis

From the writers of acclaimed blog Pen & Palate, a humorous coming-of-age (and mastering-the-art-of-home-cooking) memoir of friendship, told through stories, recipes, and beautiful illustrations.

Getting through life in your twenties isn't easy--especially if you're broke, awkward, and prone to starting small grease fires in your studio apartment. For best friends Lucy Madison and Tram Nguyen, cooking was an escape from the daily humiliation that is being a twenty-something woman in a big city.

Pen & Palate traces the course of Lucy and Tram's devoted friendship through miserable jobs and tiny apartments, first loves and ill-advised flings, successes and setbacks--always with a shared love of food at the center of the narrative. A modern take on Laurie Colwin's classic Home Cooking, this coming-of-age memoir for the Girls set weaves together comical (mis)adventures and recipes meant to be shared with a best friend and a bottle of wine.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Kara on August 26, 2016

The recipes were an interesting hook, but I was never really drawn into the various vignettes of fresh adulthood. It might be I'm just too old for the whole OMG-being-in-your-20's-is-sooo-hard genre, but it just didn't do much for me.......more

Goodreads review by Bonnie on June 22, 2016

I enjoyed reading this memoir about two women, friends since high school, and about them entering adulthood, moving to two different states and continuing their friendship through conversations by phone, their mutual love of trying recipes and figuring out what they want in life. I loved the drawing......more

Goodreads review by Emrie on July 05, 2016

I was a little disappointed that the recipes in the book were so much more advanced than I had assumed. I was kind of hoping for two girls struggling to learn how to feed themselves with no experience. However! Their struggles to live in a clean, decent apartment, their search for a career and a pas......more

Goodreads review by Aimee on July 06, 2016

I am a huge sucker for cook books and I would say this is just an evolution-used cook book with a good story. It's about amazing friendship that stands the test of time and how food is such apart of our lives whether we know it or not. I borrowed this from the library so I must now go buy a copy. An......more

Goodreads review by Georgia on August 07, 2016

Four stars for how interesting these two women are Three stars for the randomness of the structure- the recipes at the end of chapters didn't always seem logical or relevant, and the narrative jumps weren't always smooth. Enjoyable overall though.......more

Quotes

"It's cookbook as bildungsroman. The recipes are great, but greater still is the pair's unvarnished take on the comedic hideousness of being young and totally confused about everything from love to work to how much the steam heat in your crappy Manhattan apartment costs."—Bookforum

"Told with charming good humor, this millennial-girls-taking-on-the-world story will have readers immediately casting themselves and their girlfriends as either a Lucy or a Tram . . . An absolute must-have for young women and a perfect addition to food and memoir collections."
—Library Journal

"[Lucy and Tram's] advice on how to get through that fraught post-college decade: Good food, good friends, and plenty of wine. Oh, and listen to your mother (sometimes). . . . PEN & PALATE offers some lived-in advice for surviving your twenties--and eating well along the way."
—Food & Wine

"I have rarely devoured a book as quickly and as joyfully as PEN & PALATE. I paused in my reading only to snack-the book made me so happy, and so hungry. Besides being a brilliantly conceived, beautifully illustrated, funny and delicious book, PEN & PALATE is also the story of a real, deep, and wonderful friendship."—Emily Gould, author of Friendship and And the Heart Says Whatever

"PEN & PALATE is a modern tale of friendship and food. Lucy and Tram learn many of life's tough lessons: first, cold SpaghettiOs are not better than your mom's homemade caramel and coconut braised pork, and second, you can't hide from your true self (and it just so happens, your true self is actually pretty great)."—Amelia Morris, author of Bon Appétempt

"PEN & PALATE lets you tag along on the fun, sad, and sometimes kind of embarrassing journey of two young women stumbling into their own identities, while holding fast to one another. Weaving in the hallmark recipes of each chapter in their lives, Lucy and Tram have made a cozy and satisfying meal out of their stories-the kind that makes you want to sit at the table and chat all night long."—Kelsey Miller, author of Big Girl

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