In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite: 150 Recipes and Stories about the Food You Love »

In addition, Clark writes with Laurie Colwin– esque warmth and humor about the relationship that we have with our favorite foods, about the satisfaction of cooking a meal where everyone wants seconds, and about the pleasures of eating. From stories of trips to France with her parents, growing up (where she and her sister were required to sit on unwieldy tuna Nicoise sandwiches to make them more manageable), to bribing a fellow customer for the last piece of dessert at the farmers’ market, Melissa’ s stories will delight any reader who starts thinking about what’ s for dinner as soon as breakfast is cleared away. This is a cookbook to read, to savor, and most important, to cook delicious, rewarding meals from.

Publishers Weekly

Clark, a New York Times food columnist, takes readers into her home kitchen and delights them with personal stories interwoven with recipes in this engaging and scrumptious collection. Born to gourmands and exposed to a wide variety of foods from an early age, Clark possesses the uncanny ability to recreate meals from memory or invent them on the spot. Her love of breakfast results in buttery polenta with parmesan, olive oil, or fried eggs with swiss chard. Her obsession with the farmer's market inspires extra-sharp leeks vinaigrette and raw Tuscan kale salad with chilis and pecorino, and overcoming her aversion to crustaceans prompts spaghetti with spicy tomato, clams, and bacon. She shares the story behind every dish including Dahlia's fragrant chicken fingers, conjured for her chiliand bratwurst-eating one-year old's advanced palate. Italian sausages necessitate reinventing sausages with sweet pepper and onion stew, and fried croutons with chorizo and paprika. Clark creates for the home cook, making her dishes easy to replicate without special equipment and complicated preparation. Her trademark unassuming writing style, genuine love of food, and wealth of recipes, which cover chicken and meat, cheese, sandwiches, and desserts, are an incredible treat for foodies everywhere. (Sept.)