The French Ingredient by Jane Bertch

THE FRENCH INGREDIENT is the first book and memoir from Jane Bertch who started La Cuisine Paris in 2009. Despite the early setbacks which she describes that business has become the largest nonprofessional culinary school in France. Bertch subtitles her text “Making a Life in Paris One Lesson at a Time” and very engagingly depicts nearly two decades living and working in Europe. It is an eventful transition from a retail banker to a founder of a cooking school. Entrepreneurs will relate to her comments: “I was on a roller-coaster ride -- at one moment thinking, Forget it this will never work, the next feeling euphoric because we had booked a client or got some press.” She also does an entertaining job of contrasting her own grandmother’s “chaotic” kitchen with the French mise en place: the preparation for the meal with everything washed, chopped, measured, etc. before cooking begins, noting “this is likely why in a French cookbook, you will often see ingredients presented in order of quantities (highest to lowest), rather than when you use them (as in American cookbooks).” She also writes about the importance of relationships, particularly clients and regulars at a food establishment. A fun and informative read, and Bertch says, “I hope that something within these pages inspires you to do whatever you dare to think you can do -- despite all the obstacles and doubts.”

The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez

THE CEMETERY OF UNTOLD STORIES is the latest from Julia Alvarez (In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents). Alvarez focuses on four sisters, particularly Alma, the second eldest and a writer. She decides to retire and to bury her untold stories in some land she inherits in the Dominican Republic.  A sculpture friend works with her to install statues and a local caretaker, named Filomena, is hired. With a touch of magical realism surprising stories are shared. They build on themes of family, secrets, and prejudice and seem to link the local caretaker, Alma’s father, and the ex-wife of dictator Rafael Trujillo, named Bienvenida. THE CEMETERY OF UNTOLD STORIES received starred reviews from Booklist and Kirkus (“a rich and moving saga of Dominican history emerges, embodied in the lives of irresistible characters”). The audiobook (from Recorded Books) lasts almost nine hours and is narrated by Alma Cuervo who also contributed to readings of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, plus Alvarez’s Afterlife and multiple titles written by Isabel Allende and Robert Jackson Bennett.

We are Home by Ray Suarez

WE ARE HOME by Ray Suarez (Latino Americans) is subtitled “Becoming American in the 21st Century: an Oral History.”  When reading this text, I was struck by how at least some Americans seem to easily forget that we are a nation of immigrants – according to the most recent Census report, 13.9 percent, or roughly one in seven of us are foreign born. That means nearly everyone would have friends and neighbors, even family, amongst these 46.2 million people. As Suarez notes, it is even more astounding when one realizes that a quarter of Americans are foreign-born themselves or the children of foreign born residents. In WE ARE HOME, he shares the stories of several immigrants, including Samir (from Yemen, but grew up in Kenya and won a lottery for his family to come to the USA), Margaret (from Scotland who met her husband in Iran and settled in the US after that revolution), and Jaime (from El Salvador whose father applied for asylum). Suarez weaves in facts about historical changes like the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 and other statistics although the preview of his text sadly lacks any notes or bibliography. Overall, I think Suarez is trying to humanize and personalize the immigrant experience, but he takes a winding path to make key points about how immigrants contribute to American life. With an aging population, we need each other more than ever. One example is the March 2024 report from the Association of American Medical Colleges which projected the shortage of doctors in the United States to be 86,000 by 2036. Even the Wall Street Journal has run several articles concerned about nursing shortages and new State Department proposals which could limit the number of au pairs allowed to work here. Hopefully, there are stories in WE ARE HOME and from resources like Pew Research Center and Migration Policy Institute that can contribute to a fact-based sharing of information on the important, but divisive, topic of immigration reform.