Stories from the Kitchen

It’s time to crack open a new short story collection, and this time I’m going with Stories from the Kitchen edited by Diana Secker Tesdell. Having read Cat Stories and Love Stories before, this will be my third collection put together by Diana and compared to those two, I think, I like the way this book is thematically structured. It is broken into three sections; Food and Love, Memorable Meals, and Culinary Alchemy, so I’m hoping this will have a nice flow.

The collection kicks off with a classic; Love and Oysters (also known as The Misplaced Attachment of Mr. John Dounce) by Charles Dickens. Dickens’s love for food is well-documented and evident in his works, and here we see his appreciation of oysters.

The story’s protagonist, Mr. John Dounce is a widower/ retired businessman who lives an orderly life. He is not one of the “paunchy old men” who “assume all the foppishness and levity of boys, without the excuse of youth or inexperience.” He has his routine to fill his days – daily walks with his daughters and drinks with good friends at Sir Somebody’s Head take up his time. But one night returning from the pub, John comes across a newly-opened oyster-shop and its pretty owner who turns his life upside down!

The owner, a young lady in her mid-twenties, is an excellent businesswoman. She is attentive to John’s needs and lends a sympathetic ear, so maddened by love, he makes a fool of himself cutting off his daughters and old chums to become a regular at the oyster shop, only to find out the young woman doesn’t fancy him at all and has been after his wallet! Taking the rejection badly, John ends up ridiculing himself further by proposing to one woman after another, before his cook finally agrees to take his hand in marriage.

As much as I enjoyed reading Love and Oysters, I wish it included more culinary scenes and fewer warnings to “uxorious old boys.” I wanted to work up an appetite, but John’s “loves” kept getting in the way! 😀 3 stars.

** You can buy a copy of Stories from the Kitchen here on Book Depository with free shipping.