Feed the Hungry: A Memoir, with Recipes

Any book that offers up good ways to cook raccoon deserves a place in my library. Its sort of like "Running with Scissors," but much less gruesome; food-oriented, its more like "Running with Spatula." The book has a fast, easy to read rhythm - a gallop through childhood memories that few of us could replay in such detail. Nani is a literary movie camera bringing us wacky home-footage of hippie parents, kooky uncles, and grandparents with lots of money. After three novels, a memoir helps us connect the dots on the true facts of Nani's life: where she lived, the jobs she held - even the trauma around her son's birth. What does a person go through? Now I understand. Back in the day, Nani and I were classmates and then she went on to become our creative writing instructor. Now I understand how she could remain so calm when problems occurred in our class: like the time we reviewed one guy's short story, took a break, then he didn't come back (leaving his pile of stories on the table). Social worker that I am, I called him up and encouraged him to return. He called Nani and did return, but the class was fairly strange. After reading about her life, it all makes sense: perhaps Nani is a craziness-magnet (which of course, is money in the bank for any writer)! Keep us fed Nani. And bring in as much home-footage as you're willing to share with the rest of us!