Will you play Let's Pretend with me, for just a moment? Imagine you've fallen in love, so deeply, so head-over-heels, that you spend every waking moment thinking about that person, if not orbiting in their magical atmosphere.
Now imagine describing your beloved to your best friends. They haven't met him or her yet, but you really want them to fall in love just as you have. So at the risk of overselling, you struggle to find the words to explain their unique gravitational pull, and then eventually just sputter, "You just have to meet them. Then you'll see."
That's my review of Lessons in Chemistry. In a nutshell.
I finished this book a few weeks ago and couldn't even bring myself to write a review, lest I undersell this gorgeous story with an inept description and - most horrifyingly - end up somehow turning people away from the book that's catapulted to the top of my 'Favorite Reads of 2022'.
Elizabeth Zott is the star of this tale, and she's not an average woman. A brilliant chemist amongst her all-male team at a research institute, she does more than her fair share of work. But this is the 1960s, and no one wants to recognize her brilliance. In fact, her colleagues are far more willing to take credit for her work and gently usher her back into a woman's corner than to give her a decent shot. Elizabeth understands this is the way that things are, and she's willing to sheath her smarts to avoid the gender politics...until her kindergarten daughter seems to be coming home pretty hungry every day.
Elizabeth is not only a scientist but a fair whiz in the kitchen, and she can't understand why Madeline should be so ravenous when she's carefully calculated meals for their caloric density and overall nutrition. So she goes to have a word with the Lunch Thief's single father...who also turns out to be a television producer, who's so dazzled by her that he convinces her (however reluctant she might be) to star on what becomes America's most beloved cooking show, Supper at Six.
You can imagine what show biz would want to do with Elizabeth to make her camera-ready. They'd want her to wear shapely clothes, try to lose a few pounds, and work on a frilly-curtained, pastel-colored set...in other words, what men think women would want to see. On her first day, she frivolously throws the whole set into the trash - the clothes, the sweet doodads on the counter, and the curtains. She quickly replaces them with beakers, test tubes, staggeringly delicious flavors, and a gumption that makes all the quiet housewives in the audience sit up straighter with fresh glimmers in their eyes.
Read this if you love food. Read this if you love science. Read it if you love dogs (Six Thirty is the best fictional pup and has officially run away with my heart). In fact, even if you're not a fan of any of those things, pick up it anyway. Because thumbing through these pages made me want to stand up in the middle of a quiet cafe, throw my hands up in the air, and cheer loudly. Just promise me you'll read it.
You won't be sorry.
🍽 Amuse-bouche from the book
'Amuse-bouche' is a restaurant term meaning an appetizer, a free gift from the chef. Literally translated, the French phrase means 'it amuses the mouth'. Here's where I give you a small taste or preview from the book.
The interview was set for the following week. The reporter, Franklin Roth, an award-winning journalist, was well-known for his ability to gain the trust of even the most recalcitrant stars. As he slipped into his seat in the middle of the Supper at Six audience, Elizabeth was already onstage chopping through a large pile of greens. "Many believe protein comes from meat, eggs, and fish," she was saying, "but protein originates in plants, and plants are what the biggest, strongest animals in the world eat." She held up a National Geographic magazine featuring a spread on elephants, then went on to explain, in excruciating detail, the metabolic process of the world's largest land animal, asking the camera to zoom in on a photograph of the elephant's feces.
"You can actually see the fiber," she said, tapping the photo.
Roth had seen the show a few times and had found it strangely entertaining, but now, as part of the audience, he found those around him - the audience was 98 percent women - as much a part of the story as Zott was. Everyone seemed to have come armed with a notebook and pencil; a few carried chemistry textbooks. They all paid strict attention like one is supposed to in college lecture halls or church but rarely does.
During one of the advertising breaks he turned to the woman next to him. "If you don't mind me asking," he said politely, showing his credentials, "what is it that you like about the show?"
"Being taken seriously."
"Not the recipes?"
She looked back incredulously. "Sometimes I think," she said slowly, "that if a man were to spend a day being a woman in America, he wouldn't make it past noon."
The woman on the other side of him tapped his knee. "Prepare for a revolt."
