Passage I

This Writer Cooks

[1]

Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher said in the opening of her first collection of essays, Serve It Forth, “Now I am going to write a book. It will be about eating and about what to eat and about people who eat." But their work was much more than that. Serve It Forth and the wealth of books that followed its publication in 1937 changed the way her many readers think about food and about life in general. (4)

[2]

Years later, as a student living in France, she learned how to cook, her inspiration, springing from the breads and pastries of Dijon. She with imagination and creative thought used every source available to her. She had a passion for making something delightful out of whatever she had at hand, and she enjoyed a reputation for scouring local markets and shops for the better and freshest ingredients for her carefully prepared meals. (9) On the heater in her small apartment, she dried sections of tangerines and oranges and chunks of coconut, preparing them to be used in an innovative dessert.

[3]

Eating and cooking in France taught her that the sweetest pleasures are often the simplest, and that often those found in one place cannot be found anywhere else. Cauliflower and cream and Gruyere cheese when baked on one side of the Atlantic she discovered, are not the same when baked on the other side.

[4]

Once, as a young girl fixes supper for herself, Fisher couldn't resist adding enough curry to hard-boiled eggs in white sauce to completely change their appearance and flavor. Each bite burned her tongue, because she was pleased with her accomplishment. The meal was far from bland.

[5]

Fisher believed that a good cook could accomplish in three simple courses what a famous chef might only accomplish with a complicated menu. (13) Her writing is based on the same philosophy. Charming, delectable, and full of personality, Fisher's essays are short and evocative, offering precisely enough to whet and satisfy the reader's appetite. (14)