One More Book — Born Round
Have you ever had a love/hate relationship with food? Ate only because you were tired, lonely, bored, anxious or frustrated? Celebrated a new love with a few of your favorite treats? Buried love spurned with yet more of those same treats? Refused an engagement because nothing you owned fit? Postponed clothes shopping because until you lost a pesky 10 pounds? Measured your love for someone or her love for you by your or her response to a favorite dish?
If so — and who among us can honestly answer no to every such question? — you should read, and will enjoy, Born Round: The Secret History of a Full Time Eater.
Frank Bruni ended his five year stint as restaurant critic for the New York Times with the publication of this memoir. He chronicles his love, hate, struggles and successes with food and eating from his earliest childhood and school years, through his early career in Detroit and his assignments with the Times in New York, the presidential campaign trail, Washington and Rome. He traces his relationships with family, friends and lovers through the meals (and more) shared with them. Finally, he applies what he has learned about himself to his duties as the most influential restaurant critic in America, if not the world.
His observations are personal and poignant, often amusing and sometimes downright scary, all handled with a deft touch I appreciated in his reviews.
P.S. You can follow Bruni on Twitter @FrankBruni.