Taking forward our food theme this month, FACES reviews food related fiction like The Secret Ingredient of Wishes, The Restaurant of Love Regained and Like Water for Chocolate. Read on to know more…
The Secret Ingredient of Wishes
Author: Susan Bishop Crispell
26-year-old Rachel Monroe can make wishes come true; sometimes the consequences are disastrous. So, when she accidentally grants an outlandish wish for the first time in years, she decides it’s time to leave her hometown for good. She soon finds herself in ‘Nowhere’, in North Carolina, where she is taken in by a spit-fire old woman, Catch, who possesses a strange gift of her own – she can bind any secret by baking them into pies. As she settles into the small town, Rachel hopes her own secrets will stay hidden, but wishes start piling up everywhere that she goes.
The Restaurant of Love Regained
Author: Ito Ogawa
Rinko, protagonist of the book, is shocked to find her flat is totally empty. Gone are her TV set, fridge, and above all, her boyfriend. She has no choice but to go back to her native village and her mother. There she decides to open a very special restaurant, The Snail, which serves only one meal a day. But it’s a meal that is chosen with the utmost care for the diners, as Rinko helps to heal a woman’s grief, unite two young lovers and cure a sick pet. Unfortunately, her luck hasn’t changed for the better and she has bad news to bear.
Like Water for Chocolate
Author: Laura Esquivel
Like Water For Chocolate relates the bizarre history of the all-female De La Garza family. Tita, the youngest daughter of the house, has been forbidden to marry, condemned by Mexican tradition to look after her mother until she dies. But Tita falls in love with Pedro, who is seduced by the magical food she cooks. In desperation Pedro marries her sister Rosaura so that he can stay close to her. For the next twenty-two years Tita and Pedro are forced to stay away each other… Only a freakish chain of tragedies, bad luck and fate finally reunite them against all the odds.