Book Review: Cupboard Love by Laura Lockington
Laura Lockington's Foodie Memoir Makes a Mouthwatering Read
Sep 24, 2008
Cupboard Love is a humorous, beautifully evocative narrative of life, love, and taste. Great meals, the occasional husband, and a colorful cast of eccentric relatives populate Laura Lockington’s nostalgic foodie memoir.
The author definitely has a way with words, and one can easily guess that she spices up her writing with carefully chosen words and vivid imagery much like she probably sprinkles her lovingly cooked dished with herbs.
Comfort Food and Memorable Meals
From the first tang of home-made lemonade sipped on a perilous picnic with gay Uncle Freddie to bread sauce perfected in the warmth of her mother’s Cornish kitchen; forbidden fruits in Florence to Chocolate Rose Leaves, Thunder Tea and some mighty dangerous mussels.
Every chapter (except one, which is devoted to the horrors of eating in the primary school canteen) begins with a recipe told by Ms Lockington in a conspiratory (foodie-to-foodie) voice. In each instance, the same recipe then also plays a role in the chapter itself: lots of comfort food and a quite a few memorable meals, at home and abroad.
Recipes as Snapshots of Her Travels
Laura Lockington says that to her “Cooking and eating has always seemed an adventure, one to be undertaken in a spirit of part devilry and part optimism. I blame it all fairly and squarely on my Mother...”
Though hardly a culinary travelogue, Cupboard Love prominently features a few noteworthy meals in France, Italy and Thailand. Fittingly, Laura Lockington's first foreign culinary adventure abroad is when her uncles, having won a small fortune at poker overnight, treat her to a surprise private flight and fruits de mer dinner in Paris on her twelfth birthday. Now, how's that for a foodie debutante?
Featured Recipes (from England and Beyond)
- Ham Cooked in Cider
- Home Made Lemonade
- Smoked Trout Pâté
- Bread Sauce
- Chocolate Rose Leaves
- Thunder Tea
- Aioli
- Steak and Kidney Pudding
- Snape
- Moules
- Fish Pie
- Sauce Vierge
- Cornish Pasty
- Good Tempered Lamb
- Roasted Asparagus
- Thai Crabcakes
- Salad Grace Helen (Grace Helen being the Author's grandmother)
- Strawy's Christmas Cake (Strawy being the Author's mother)
The Bottom Line
Cupboard Love is a beautifully written, nostalgic and endearingly funny foodie memoir. In cinematic terms, Cupboard Love would probably stand somewhere between two Academy Awards winners for Best Foreign Language Film: Antonia's Line and Babette's Feast -- maybe with just a pinch of Bridget Jones added (for the humourous narrative, rather than for chick-lit clichés).
Celebrity chef Aldo Zilli describes Cupboard Love as "Perfect for the kitchen, or for the bedside table!" while the Publishing News called the book “nostalgic, warm, eccentric and funny.”
About Laura Lockington
A self-professed "food stalker", Laura Lockington admits to having an "unhealthy interest in food" and firmly believes that "cooking your first Christmas lunch (is) about as grown up as it gets."
Over the years, Laura Lockington has donned many (and multicolored) professional hats. When she’s not in the kitchen, she is a writer, playwright an publicist.
Random House published her first two books, Stargazy Pie and Capers in the Sauce. She has also co-written several plays for Radio 4.
She lives in Brighton, England.
Book Details
Cupboard Love. A Food Romance | by Laura Lockington | published September 2008 by Book Guild Publishing, UK | ISBN 978-1-84624-280-9 | £9.99 | Hardcover | available in bookshops or on-line
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