Big Heart Little Stove by Erin French

 Big Heart Little Stove is your new go-to inspiration for cooking thoughtful and meaningful, yet refreshingly simple meals. With more than 75 recipes and her favorite hospitality “signatures,” Erin French―author of The Lost Kitchen cookbook and the New York Times-bestselling memoir Finding Freedom―invites readers to bring a piece of her beloved restaurant, The Lost Kitchen, home with them.

With dishes pulled from French’s family recipe box and the menu at The Lost Kitchen, ranging from irresistible nibbles like Pecorino Puffs and Gram’s Clam Dip; to luscious soups like Golden Tomato & Peach and Potato & Lentil with Bacon and Herbs; to heaping platters of family-style salads and sides like Peach & Blackberry Salad and Green Beans with Sage, Garlic, and Breadcrumbs; to show-stopping main courses like Pickle-Brined Roast Chicken and Wednesday Night Fish Fry; to French’s favorite all-purpose kitchen staples like Kitchen Sink Pesto and Floral Vinegar, this cookbook has all the tools you need for assembling a seamlessly special meal.

To round things out, there are beverages to sip as dinner comes off the stove (Fresh Fruit Shrubs, Slush Puppies) and desserts to make your guests feel truly looked after (Salted Caramel Custards, Roasted Peach Pie with Almond and Fennel). And because weekend mornings deserve celebrating too, there are feel-good treats like Sunday Skillet Cakes and Little Nutmeg Diner Donuts.

Regardless of whether it’s a dressed-up affair or a quick weeknight meal, French’s recommendations are the same: Start with the best ingredients you can find, keep it simple, and serve with love.

But Big Heart Little Stove is more than just a cookbook. With tips and tricks French has used in her own dining room―at home and in the restaurant―this book is your invitation to use what’s around you to create meaningful moments, from setting a table with found treasures, to adorning dishes with edible flowers, to thoughtful gestures such as offering a cold cloth on a hot day. Full of warmth and spirit, Big Heart Little Stove will show you how to create more joy and connection around your table.

Pick up your copy here...

Big Heart Little Stove: Bringing Home Meals... by French, Erin (amazon.com)

Erin French is the owner and chef of The Lost Kitchen, a 40-seat restaurant in Freedom, Maine, that was recently named one TIME Magazine’s World’s Greatest Places and one of "12 Restaurants Worth Traveling Across the World to Experience" by Bloomberg. A born-and-raised native of Maine, she learned early the simple pleasures of thoughtful food and the importance of gathering for a meal. Her love of sharing Maine and its delicious heritage with curious dinner guests and new friends alike has garnered attention in outlets such as The New York Times (her piece was one of the ten most read articles in the food section the year it was published), Martha Stewart Living, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and Food & Wine. She has been invited to share her story on NPR’s All Things Considered, The Chew, CBS This Morning, and The Today Show. Erin was featured in a short film made by Tastemade in partnership with L. L. Bean, which won a James Beard Award, and The Lost Kitchen Cookbook has been named one of the best cookbooks by The Washington Post, Vogue.com, and Remodelista and was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award.

My Thoughts...

This gorgeous yet simple cookbook is full of easy meals that are so elegant you can serve them to your guests. The photos in this cookbook are wonderful. This is going to be a cookbook in my kitchen that I use over and over again.

The Mary Reader received this book from the publisher for review. A favorable review was not required, and all views expressed are our own.

Finding Freedom By Erin French

 From Erin French, owner and chef of the critically acclaimed The Lost Kitchen, a TIME world dining destination, a life-affirming memoir about survival, renewal, and finding a community to lift her up

Long before The Lost Kitchen became a world dining destination with every seating filled the day the reservation book opens each spring, Erin French was a girl roaming barefoot on a 25-acre farm, a teenager falling in love with food while working the line at her dad’s diner and a young woman finding her calling as a professional chef at her tiny restaurant tucked into a 19th century mill. This singular memoir―a classic American story―invites readers to Erin's corner of her beloved Maine to share the real person behind the “girl from Freedom” fairytale, and the not-so-picture-perfect struggles that have taken every ounce of her strength to overcome, and that make Erin’s life triumphant.

In Finding Freedom, Erin opens up to the challenges, stumbles, and victories that have led her to the exact place she was ever meant to be, telling stories of multiple rock-bottoms, of darkness and anxiety, of survival as a jobless single mother, of pills that promised release but delivered addiction, of a man who seemed to offer salvation but in the end ripped away her very sense of self. And of the beautiful son who was her guiding light as she slowly rebuilt her personal and culinary life around the solace she found in food―as a source of comfort, a sense of place, as a way of bringing goodness into the world. Erin’s experiences with deep loss and abiding hope, told with both honesty and humor, will resonate with women everywhere who are determined to find their voices, create community, grow stronger and discover their best-selves despite seemingly impossible odds. Set against the backdrop of rural Maine and its lushly intense, bountiful seasons, Erin reveals the passion and courage needed to invent oneself anew, and the poignant, timeless connections between food and generosity, renewal and freedom. 

Pick up your copy here...

Amazon.com: Finding Freedom: A Cook's Story; Remaking a Life from Scratch (9781250312341): French, Erin: Books

Erin French is the owner and chef of The Lost Kitchen, a 40-seat restaurant in Freedom, Maine, that was recently named one TIME Magazine’s World’s Greatest Places and one of "12 Restaurants Worth Traveling Across the World to Experience" by Bloomberg. A born-and-raised native of Maine, she learned early the simple pleasures of thoughtful food and the importance of gathering for a meal. Her love of sharing Maine and its delicious heritage with curious dinner guests and new friends alike has garnered attention in outlets such as The New York Times (her piece was one of the ten most read articles in the food section the year it was published), Martha Stewart Living, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and Food & Wine. She has been invited to share her story on NPR’s All Things Considered, The Chew, CBS This Morning, and The Today Show. Erin was featured in a short film made by Tastemade in partnership with L. L. Bean, which won a James Beard Award, and The Lost Kitchen Cookbook has been named one of the best cookbooks by The Washington Post, Vogue.com, and Remodelista and was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award.

My Thoughts...

A memoir with so much heart and a little bit of grit. You can not stop reading it. The food descriptions  were something to savor. I could not read this just once. I read it twice.

The hardship and the overcoming is something else to read about. I have so much respect for French  after spending an afternoon in her memoir.

I can't recommend this enough. 5 stars and please grab a copy.

The Mary Reader received this book from the publisher for review. A favorable review was not required and all views expressed are our own.