What We Eat When We Eat Alone: Stories and 100 Recipes by Deborah Madison

What We Eat When We Eat Alone: Stories and 100 Recipes Reviews

• 
  Ellie

  Ok, I may be in the minority on thinking this book was "amazing" but it was such a joy to read and gave me much time to self-reflect on the solitary meals of my own life that I can't really keep from marking it highly. (Is it sad that I reflect on solitary meals...hmmm)
  
  I found myself nodding in agreement, laughing at shared experiences, and generally feeling part of a club, a "solo diner club" if you will. While my days of solo eating are less frequent, they do exist on a regular basis and I still resort to a lot of the same methods I grew so fondly of during the better part of 4 years living, and subsequently often cooking, alone. I valued those meals and enjoyed most of them, putting thought into carefully planned grocery lists, menus, and variety.
  
  I also found myself remembering things I had forgotten these past couple years living with someone: it's always best to avoid grocery shopping on Sunday afternoons, for instance, because it's just too depressing with the place crawling with couples and families, but better to wait until Monday night when the coast is clear and you can bond with the other random folks who are, for whatever reason, shopping alone. Also, only shop in places that make you happy.
  
  In any case, I'd fork over a couple hours to this funny and telling book. You may grimace at a few of the recipes outlined therein, but others look rather promising. In essence it's a book that offers a snapshot into a part of life we don't typically discuss: what we eat when we are, well, alone. Corny as it sounds, it really is food for thought. Tasty, too.
• 
  Jeannine

  This book was ... ok. The premise was interesting and the illustrations were good, but it was kind of elitist in its approach to the things people eat when they eat alone. For example, the author expressed disappointment in how many people said they eat cold cereal when they are alone, and seemed almost embarrassed when their friends talked about the processed foods they liked (the redo of the 7-11 version of "Frito Pie" is almost laughable in its complexity.)
  
  The author also spends a lot of time segmenting the foods/recipes by gender which I thought was odd (but may be due to the fact that author and illustrator are husband and wife.) Lots of southwest recipes, but again, probably because that is where the author/illustrator reside.
  
  Overall, a good read with a couple of recipes I'd like to try, but I wish someone else would write on this topic with a more balanced, less snobbish take.
• 
  Jeanette (Ms. Feisty)

  Meh...I'd hoped for a more entertaining and revelatory book about people's secret eating habits. This is more like a really long magazine article with one recitation after another of people's impromptu, informal ideas of what to fix when you're alone. In between chapters there are sections with more formal recipes, which may be helpful to you if you like a lot of meat, seafood, and cheese.
  
  There were a few revelations that did gross me out. One person eats bread dipped in margarita mix, and a couple of people actually like bacon and peanut butter together. Blech!
  
  I was surprised at how many people view being alone as an excuse to eat more unhealthy food. For me, it's an opportunity to gorge on fruits and vegetables without having to worry about other people's notions of what constitutes a balanced meal.
• 
  Geraldine

  I loved the illustrations and the conceit, but the recipes themselves were kind of disappointing and the prose was weirdly preachy. Seriously, if you are preparing a meal for one, you probably don't have 812 different kinds of fresh herbs and peppers on hand. And stop judging my dinner of popcorn and wine.
• 
  Molly

  An odd book, yet it inspired me. Unlike so many of my friends, I do not find myself inspired by cookbooks. Usually I look at cookbooks and think of the impossibility of the recipe, the ridiculous number of sundry ingredients, and the excessive number of hours to be spent in the kitchen. Not so with this book. This book is more of a friendly narrative, two neighbors discussing food. I liked it.
• 
  Anita

  Le sigh.
  
  I really, really wanted to like this a whole lot more than I did. The illustrations are adorable and the premise is intriguing.
  
  Then? Then it gets.... weird. And a tad skritchy to read. As another reviewer noted, it's seriously segmented by gender and the emphasis on women's eating habits as relates to size..... ugh. Really? Women who eat alone do not eat pasta? And the constant reference to 'tiny' women with unusual eating habits (like the rotisserie chicken) just grated (and I'm not usually that sensitive to that sort of thing) - but ... I dunno. It is what I call a 'bubble book' where 'research' seems limited to a specific range of people. I'm all for seeing what a few food industry folks do - but what about plumbers? Doctors? Bus drivers? If you don't know any of those folks? Go find 'em. They're all around you.
  
  The Frito Pie redo is hysterical. And unnecessary, with about 320 steps to mask the notion of Fritos. Why? If you don't like Fritos, don't eat 'em. I don't like Fritos. So I make nachos. Problem solved.
  
  And when we get to the chapter on what to cook for seduction...... that's when I just disconnected from the entire book. Luckily, that's at the end, so I didn't feel too awful about it.
  
  It's not the worst thing I've ever read but I'm sorry to say I just found it a bit tiresome and smug.
• 
  Jennifer

  I was particularly interested in this title as a frequent (almost constant!) solo diner...some nights I'm a popcorn and beer person, some nights I cook a big pot of something that will last all week, and at least once a week I make myself a really nice meal. I know other solo diners who are astounded that I cook for MYSELF...Who else do they think will be cooking for me, or whom better should I cook for? I'm astounded by the people who eat in restaurants rather than cook for themselves, or worse, pick up something from a drive-through. Anyway, this was a lot of fun, reading other people's guilty secrets, and learning that LOTS of people cook for just themselves, and cook well!
• 
  Rogue Reader

  The title of this book was the first thing to grab my eye, as eating alone whether at home or in a restaurant is always a delight, perhaps because it doesn't happen that often. Madison presents many eccentric eaters and both haphazard and gifted cooks in this beautifully bound work published by Gibbs Smith. Dozens of stories tell of private culinary pleasures enjoyed in solitude - food favorites that no one should ever know of, long remembered childhood tastings, and exquitely crafted meals both simple and complex. 100 recipes from some of the most delicious stories are included. Patric McFarlin's wonderful color illustrations complete the work.
• 
  Jacqie

  I was hoping for some off-the-wall, interesting, original recipes and/or thoughts from this book. I've already read "Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant", another book on individual eating patterns, and enjoyed some of the funny essays in that book.
  This book did not have the depth of "Eggplant", nor did it give any startling revelations. Men eat more steaks and burgers, women eat more salads, as a general rule. Lots and lots of southwestern recipes, which was kind of intriguing. Maybe those types of foods are easier to assemble and eat, have a comfort food aspect, and have some spice to make it interesting. (Those are my observations; the book doesn't go into "whys" very much.)
  There are some recipes I'll try (a breakfast burrito recipe coming up soon) but this book could have used less reporting and more insight and introspection.
• 
  Catherine Woodman

  I read this book because I have had a 30 year love affair with Deborah Madison, going back to her Tassahara days (she and Ed Brown taught me how to make bread, and how to shape bread--they started my college years off on an incredibly good foot)--culminating with Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, one of the all time best cookbooks ever. This book is not great--it is a book about how people eat when they eat and cook for themselves when they are alone--it is really a book of musings about people have told her husband over the years, followed by her own thoughts, and then some very fun drawings by her husband to illustrate various points throughout the book. There are 2-3 dozen recipes from people's alone dining, none of which seem truly fabulous--but in fact, n the two days since I started the book, I have talked
  about it a half dozen times and thought about it twice as often.
• 
  Megan Anderson

  Some of the recipes sounded good, but the book seemed...I don't really know how to describe it. Like the author, rather than inviting me into her kitchen, scorned anything as "mundane" as a peanut butter sandwich or bowl of cereal. Everything had to be organic or exotic, or else it wasn't worth eating. That might not be how she truly feels, but that's the impression she gives as she writes. Some of the recipes sounded okay, but many of them seemed needlessly complicated or incredibly expensive.
• 
  Erica

  I love Deborah Madison. While I must say I do prefer her cook books, this little gem explores the strange and occasionally delicious things that people eat when they are alone.
  
  I hate eating alone.
• 
  Aubrey

  Colorful and always nice to pick up, this book was good for a few minutes of bedtime reading if you love food or cooking. It takes a very small and sometimes mundane part of everyone's lives and makes it significant just for a few moments.
• 
  catharine

  This book is like a collaboration between Roald Dahl and Ruth Riechl.
  
  I often take guilty pleasure in the meals I eat alone and was delighted by the varied stories of people who do the same.
• 
  Robin

  I hesitated to rate this one star because of the recipes, but the "content" in between the recipes is utter garbage. I haven't read such pointless sexist nonsense in a long, long time. And I was especially not expecting to be bombarded with ridiculous sexism in a supposedly lighthearted book about eating on your own.
  
  A few examples:
  "I once stood in a Whole Foods on a Saturday night and watched an obviously single woman order the inevitable skinless, boneless chicken breast from the butcher. It felt so sad I immediately wanted to invite her home to eat with us instead..." You would think that a book about what people eat when they're alone wouldn't be so ridiculously judgmental of someone buying something to eat alone, right?? And like....WHY is it sad? Back almost 20 yrs ago when I used to eat meat I always preferred the supposedly sad skinless, boneless chicken breasts because the skin grossed me out and the bone felt like a hassle. Why the assumption that a woman buying this is in any way depriving herself of something? Maybe she just likes chicken breast!
  
  There's literally a whole chapter on "men and their meat." Ugh. I just can't even with the stereotyping that eating meat is manly and men always want to eat meat and yadda yadda yadda. Sexist claptrap. If men or women want to eat meat, cool, if not, cool. If a man isn't a man unless he eats meat, he was never a man to begin with. Masculinity should never be conditional on something arbitrary and external. This chapter seems especially ridiculous considering that they interviewed more than one vegetarian man throughout the rest of the book.
  
  And then there's all the heteronormativity nonsense! Like all women are doing all the cooking for the menfolk and are relieved to get a break when the menfolk leave. It was driving me bananas that every time the authors would make a ridiculous generalization based on sexism and heteronormativity, someone they talked to would inevitably exist outside the bounds of that generalization and the authors would be like "this person's the only one, though, everyone else is a stereotype!" Here's a condensed passage from the book:
  "Women who are tired of cooking for those ingrates called children and the occasional spouse...know the pleasure of being alone at last in one's kitchen. ...women can get pretty basic and simply go for leftovers." etc etc for 2 pages, and then in reference to someone who cooks normal nice things for herself: "'Being alone or among people does not change what I eat,' Amanda says. And this is unusual." Not long after that, the author declares that eating alone is lonely and tries never to do it. I just...what is happening?? Why is this book ramming so many weird stereotypes and judgments into this? I don't get it.
  
  Last but not least, the entire book describes the people it talks to in very generic ways, like these examples from the book: "Take Dru Sherrod, ...a tall elegant man..." or "A farmer in Texas...Larry Butler..." or "An Ohioan dictates her sardine recipe as follows..." or "Emily Hertzog, a lithe surgeon..." And then, out of nowhere, the author writes this: "...an amicable African American man I sat next to on a flight..." Great. So now I know that all the other people in the book are likely white people, because none of them have had their race described. And this gentlemen is pretty much the only person without any actual descriptors, like what they do or where they live or other like normal descriptors. This person is just "African American." So add some casual racism on top off all the stupid sexism.
  
  Ugh. Never been so mad at what should have been a casual light read. Pardon me while I hurl this out of a window and into a dumpster.
• 
  Aimee

  I wanted to like this book, but it just didn't live up to its potential. The illustrations are fantastic, and are definitely the best part of the book. The recipes are weird and/or simplistic and tend toward the highly idiosyncratic, as meals do when one is alone.
  
  That's all fine and probably to be expected - we all do what we like when responsible for only our own pleasure. The problem is that the bulk of the book is narrative about what people eat when alone and the writing is just… confusing and generally bad. Very few people are identified by name and are instead given identifiers such as "a male chef from Tucson" or "a lady who likes sardines." There's also a breakdown of what Men eat and what Women eat when alone, which is overgeneralised and made up of tired gender tropes. The story of the illustrator's class assignment to write down absolutely everything eaten or drunk in one day is interesting (and maybe where the idea of this book came from) but just goes to show how unreliable and passé those generalisations are.
  
  Perhaps the books second half is better, or more interesting. I will never know, as I have put it aside to move on to more interesting, less aggravating things.
• 
  Mia

  This was mostly disappointing. I only give it two stars instead of one for a handful of interesting recipes and some fun sketches. The concept of the book was also good, but it was executed poorly. The writing is boring and without any kind of nuance. The author makes assumptions about people and sexes that's kind of hard to get through, and the last two chapters weren't even about eating alone.
• 
  Jen Arko

  I picked up this book in the clearance section of Chapters. I didn't even realize it was a cookbook at first - what drew me to it was that there were anecdotes between the recipes of people's strange food choices. There are at least two recipes I want to return to, and that's not bad for a cookbook.
  
  The book was fun and cute and the drawings were amusing. I could read a 'chapter' whenever I felt like it (which is why it took me so long to read). It wasn't gripping, it wasn't a laugh a minute, and it felt a bit all over the place (despite the themes for each section).
  
  What grated on me was that the author seemed to presuppose that everyone is destined to be in either a couple or a family. It wasn't said explicitly, but came through in the style. I wanted to send it to a single friend of mine, but felt it was too preachy (if you will) in that area, and I couldn't get behind it. Not to mention it's white- and hetero-/cis- centricity. Don't know what I was hoping for in this regard. As I said before, 'grating' is the best way I can describe how it struck me. (No pun intended.)
• 
  Jennifer Feng

  The parts describing gendered stereotypes of eating habits are really weird???? But the recipes are whimsical and veggie forward, with fascinating and unexpected accounts of what people like to eat when alone (zabiglione!). I'm also someone who like when recipes are more like stories and are included in the body of the text so I enjoyed the format, although I know it's not for everyone.
• 
  Lindsay

  Lovely concept, but I was put off by the outdated views. Men eat meat chapter, for example. And a lot of wowing over young men figuring out cooking for themselves...ummm women should be applauded for that too. The recipes were interesting but not enough for me to try to make any.
• 
  Queue

  Don't think it's entirely the post-op Percocet that made me find this a bit disjointed, the whole not quite living up to its entertaining parts. Worth reading nonetheless, for its legitimization of eating alone - common phenomenon, underreported - among other things.
• 
  Elizabeth

  This book has been in my personal library for a long time, perhaps since it was originally published in 2009 (?). I'd read it before and remember enjoying it more the first time around. Still, I'm not sorry I reread it and I'm now happy to pass it on to someone else who might appreciate it more.
• 
  Carol

  A foodie equivalent of a beach read! Fun to read.
• 
  Brooke

  2.5 stars. The storytelling of the last two chapters was much better than the rest of the book, which felt very disjointed (and, oddly, sexist and old-fashioned).
• 
  Margaret Pinard

  A little simple, but lived the anecdotes, a lot of the recipes, and the illustrations and musings on human nature...but they did run pretty stereotypical in the gender department.
• 
  Esmeralda Lessire

  I can't wait to try some of the recipes in this book!
• 
  Cindy

  Such a fun read... as if I'm outside spying through the window into someone's kitchen.
  I was drawn to this book by a recipe I'd read about in a review: potato and green chile stew. It's a regular go-to for me on those evenings when I'm hungry and don't want to muss up every.pan.in.the.kitchen.
  While there are recipes, the author also talks to people about the meals they make when they're alone. The weird combinations...for me, this would be a peanut butter and pickle sandwich. Then there is the spouse sitting home alone, noshing happily on tomato toast; or the cowboy cooking his own version of gazpacho with canned V8 juice.
  There's a peculiar psychology here, born of being alone but free to indulge in foods that are loved, some high falutin' and others just plain joy for the asking.
  I laughed a lot reading this. And found myself nodding in recognition of the situations and recipes that grew from moments alone.
  Highly recommend.
• 
  Madhusree

  Interesting book to dip into .