Licking the Spoon: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Identity

Candace Walsh

Nov 2012 · Sold by Seal Press

About this ebook

Recipes and cookbooks, meals and mouthfuls have framed the way Candace Walsh sees the world for as long as she can remember, from her frosting-spackled childhood to her meat-eschewing college years to her post-college phase as a devoted Martha Stewart's Entertaining disciple.

In Licking the Spoon, Walsh tells how, lacking role models in her early life, she turned to cookbook authors real and fictitious (Betty Crocker, Martha Stewart, Mollie Katzen, Daniel Boulud, and more) to learn, unlearn, and redefine her own womanhood. Through the lens of food, Walsh recounts her life’s journey-from unhappy adolescent to straight-identified wife and mother to divorcée in a same-sex relationship—and she throws in some dishy revelations, a-ha moments, take-home tidbits, and mouth-watering recipes for good measure. 

A surprising and rambunctiously liberating tale of cooking and eating, loving and being loved, Licking the Spoon is the story of how—accompanied by pivotal recipes, cookbooks, culinary movements, and guides—one woman learned that you can not only recover but blossom after a comically horrible childhood if you just have the right recipes, a little luck, and an appetite for life's next meal.

About the author

Candace Walsh has been a freelance writer for almost fifteen years. She has written for many publications, including Blender, New York Magazine, Mademoiselle, Newsday, Sunset, Travel & Leisure, Mothering, German Vogue, and Food & Wine. She is also the managing editor of the website My Healing Kitchen, a co-founder of Mamalicious magazine, and the editor of two Seal Press anthologies: Dear John, I Love Jane: Women Write About Leaving Men for Women and Ask Me About My Divorce: Women Open Up About Moving On.