The Memory of Lemon by Judith Fertig is filled with vivid descriptions of tempting bakery treats. Each month, Neely’s bakery, Rainbow Cakes, features unique flavor profiles. Like lime bars with coconut crust and lime custard filling in April. Strawberry-Rhubarb hand pies in May. Apricot cakes and lavender cookies in June. But, throughout the novel, lemon is the one flavor she keeps returning to. Lemon is a flavor that evokes memories of her childhood and her family, and although neither were perfect, it’s a flavor that helps her heal as she confronts these memories.
Perhaps more importantly, she uses the flavor of lemon to reconnect with her estranged father. His struggle with PTSD following the Vietnam war along with his alcoholism made him feel his family would be better off without him. At the start of the novel, when his first letter arrives, Neely is reluctant to respond to the father that walked out her family. Throughout the course of the novel, she works through the anger she feels towards her father, and eventually she starts sending him care packages of lemon cookies in hopes that the memory of lemon will help him heal too.
Now, I am not a fan of lemon flavored sweets, yet I found myself dreaming up a list of desserts to whip up after reading this novel. Eventually, I settled on a simple lemon loaf cake drizzled with lemon scented honey. The flavor was buttery sweet and zesty lemon, which is exactly what I had hoped for. My only regret is polishing off the last of the Lemon Soleil Tea from Adagio Teas prior to this baking excursion.
Are there any flavors that evoke memories of your childhood or your family? (Mine would probably be my dad’s angel hair pasta, my mom’s sugar cookies, and banana pudding).
February is almost over, and I’ve only finished three books so far. Except for the Mermaids of Lake Michigan by Suzanne Kamata, which I devoured in two sittings, I find myself trudging through every book I pick up. Take for example the Memory of Lemon by Judith Fertig- it’s a relatively short book with 288 pages, but I spent nearly a month reading it. Don’t get me wrong. There were aspects of this book that were engaging and beautifully written. But, there were also aspects of this book that I felt disconnected from, and indifferent.
This book felt a little cozy
As in, if you added a thrilling murder and a pet cat, you’d have a cozy mystery novel. I suspect it was the introduction of the main character, Neely, who is in the process of divorcing her cavorting pro-football husband and starting fresh in her old hometown in southwest Ohio– a world away from posh NYC, which is where she lived prior. (What cozy mystery doesn’t start out with the main character arriving in a small town after leaving a husband or a long-time boyfriend?)
She has also recently opened her own bakery called Rainbow Cakes, so you better believe your tummy will be grumbling throughout. If you’re a foodie or a baker, I’m sure you’ll love reading about all of Neely’s delicious baked goods! Plus, Rainbow Cakes is the perfect setting to meet all of the locals, like rough-around-the-edges Jett, Neely’s bakery assistant, and the bashful professor, who has his heart set on Maggie, Neely’s emotionally guarded waitress.
I wasn’t sure if Neely’s gift was supernatural or synesthesia
My favorite aspect of this book is how Neely can connect emotions and memories to certain flavors. I thought she was a synesthetic at first, and perhaps she is. Still, her gift teeters on the edge of the supernatural because she can experience feelings and memories of her ancestors. Fertig’s writing springs to life every time Neely experiences the past, and readers are treated to rich imagery of life in the Ohio River Valley during the 1800s.
But…I’d rather read about Neely’s past than her present
The part of the novel I feel indifferent about is Neely’s present, specifically the conflicts she has to overcome in her love life. Unlike Neely’s baked goods, Neely is kind of a bland character, and I had a hard time connecting with her. As for the conflict…it had potential. Neely is trying to divorce her football star husband, who doesn’t seem quite ready to let her go despite his debaucherous behavior. She especially wants to expedite the process because she’s falling in love with one of her best friends. She has to be careful though because there is a clause in the prenuptial agreement that could mean financial ruin if it’s determined Neely is being unfaithful. Fertig lets this conflict simmer throughout the novel; I wanted the pot to come to a full boil, but Fertig removes it from the burner before it had a chance, and I was left feeling kind of let down.
That being said…the wedding Neely and her team are planning was totally my dream wedding!!!
Perhaps my timing was off
The Memory of Lemon by Judith Fertig teeters right on the edge of being a fluffy, contemporary novel, which is best devoured during a summer afternoon sitting on the back deck, soaking up the sun, not during the throes of winter while buried under blankets.
A crisp tang of citrus that is at once poignant and familiar, sharpening the senses and opening the mind to possibilities once known and long forgotten… Claire “Neely” Davis is no ordinary pastry chef. Her flavor combinations aren’t just a product of a well-honed palate: she can “taste” people’s emotions, sensing the ingredients that will touch her customers’ souls. Her gift has never failed her—until she meets a free-spirited bride-to-be and her overbearing society mother. The two are unable to agree on a single wedding detail, and their bickering leaves Neely’s intuition frustratingly silent—right when she needs it most.
Between trying to navigate a divorce, explore a new relationship, and handle the reappearance of her long-absent father, Neely is struggling to make sense of her own conflicting emotions, much less those of her hard-to-please bride. But as she embarks on a flavorful quest to craft the perfect wedding celebration, she’ll uncover a family history that sheds light on both the missing ingredients and her own problems—and illustrates how the sweet and sour in life often combine to make the most delicious memories…
Elise Faulkner is more at home in the waters of her beloved Lake Michigan than on land where her beauty queen mom is always on her back about her lack of a social life; her sister is dating the boy of her dreams; her favorite penpal–the one who wrote about mermaids in Ghana–has gotten married and ended their correspondence; and no one’s allowed to talk about her glamorous great-grandmother, the deep-sea wreck diver. Elise is biding her time with books until she can flee. But then crazy Chiara Hanover pops into her life, as does Miguel, a mysterious carnival worker whose dark future has been predicted by a gypsy.
Here’s the thing– the synopsis you’ll read on goodreads or the back of the book won’t do The Mermaids of Lake Michigan by Suzanne Kamata justice. The synopsis seems almost flippant with its talk of beauty queens and carnival workers and deep-sea wreck divers and mermaids (of course), but there is so much more gravity to this novel.
The Mermaids of Lake Michigan is a stunningly-written and poetic coming-of-age novel that takes place in the small, sea-side town of Grand Haven, Michigan during the 1970s. Life for Elisa Faulkner seems cookie-cutter-esque until she meets the Chiara Hanover, her neighbor’s vibrant and carefree granddaughter. They’re a bit of an odd couple at first, but Chiara breathes life back into Elise. It’s the small things at first– like influencing Elise to chop of her long locks and changing her wardrobe. Then it grows to skipping school and stealing away to the smoky clubs in Chicago with fake IDs to succumb to infectious, jazzy music. Along the way, Elise meets a young Romani man at a carnival, and he sweeps her off her feet with talk of destiny.
Every once in a while, readers also catch a glimpse of Elise’s childhood and her relationship with her mother. At times, readers see a pathetic vision of a mother trying to fit into the dress she wore when she was the winner of her local beauty pageant. They see her distant and depressed when she learns she is pregnant for a third time. They see her hiding a greyhound bus ticket that promised to take her far away from the family she helped build. And, it’s these visions that drive Elise to be impulsive– to follow her heart all the way from Michigan to Columbia, South Carolina. There she hopes to find love and destiny, but instead she finds longing and despair.
I knocked a star off my rating because I didn’t realize this novel took place in the 1970s for the first several chapters. Also for its use of the word “gypsy”, which is a racial slur, and its associated stereotypes.
I received a copy of this novel for free in exchange for an honest review as part of TLC Book Tours.
A dense fog has sunk into mid-Michigan this week. It’s made my new, 30-mile commute dreadful and the woods across the street from my house particularly spooky. Perhaps the ominous atmosphere is what drove me to pluck Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris from the library shelf on Saturday. Or, perhaps it was the glitter on the book cover. Regardless the reason, now that I’ve sat down to read the novel, I find myself nervous to open the book. This is what I know about the Sookie Stackhouse series:
It’s wildly popular. They even turned it into a TV show.
It’s a pretty steamy series.
There is a vampire in it (multiple vampires?), which immediately increases the probability that I will loathe the book.
So, here I am procrastinating by blogging and drinking tea that tastes more like the sweet clovers I tasted in late Springtime in Ohio when I was a child than something that should accompany a novel about vampires. Even if said novel has glitter on the front cover.
Today I drink Doomni Summer Oolong from Teabox Tea, which is from the Assam region, an area known for its malty, black tea rather than its Oolong. The dry leaves are a beautiful blend of dark green, rusty-brown, and taupe, and they smell creamy, sweet, and soft. The flavor of the tea is reminiscent of the red clover flowers that I used to taste growing up in Ohio– slightly vegetal and slightly honeyed sweet. I also pick up a very subtle floral flavor– jasmine, maybe? The package mentions there should also be some minty notes, but I do not taste it. Basically, Doomni Summer Oolong tastes like Springtime, and it seems to cut through the fog wrapped around soggy tree trunks. This tea is best sipped hot, but if you’re going to nurse it, you can add some honey to cut the bitterness that surfaces as it cools.
Have you ever been so nervous to start a new book that you found yourself procrastinating?
I think the thing that surprised me most about my local library was how many people were there. Then again, in a village of about 3,000 people, what else is there to do on a Saturday morning in the middle of January? This particular Saturday was “balmy”– overcast and nearly 50 degrees. I would have pried open windows, as Michiganders are wont to do during brief spells of unseasonably warm weather, but all of my windows are missing screens. So…I decided to walk to the library instead, which happens to be a short zig-zag away from my house. I mean, it probably took me a whole minute to walk there.
Now, the library I used to visit in the capital city was a big, brand new building with high ceilings, couches, and a fireplace, and you could easily maneuver the stacks without bumping into anyone. My new library is a small brick building tucked beside the fire department. The front lawn is decorated with some awkward scarecrow made out of white fence pieces and a blow-up snowman that looks tacky now that Christmas is a month behind us. Inside is cozy though, perhaps a little dark in some corners, and almost over-stuffed with books, if such a thing were possible. Patrons included a man with a scraggly beard playing on the computers, an elderly woman, who has traced her ancestry back to the 1400s so far, and a middle-aged woman, who had just won $40 on a scratch-off lottery ticket, and the first thing she thought to do with the money was pay her library fine so she could borrow books again.
Even though the selection of books isn’t nearly as vast as my old library, I still managed to spend an hour perusing the stacks. This weekend’s library loot includes:
Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison — I read this over ten years ago when I was still in high school; I wonder if it’s still as funny as I remember.
Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel — a sci-fi novel told in interviews, journal entries, transcripts, and news articles. I’ve not had any luck with epistolary novels lately, but we’ll see if this one is different.
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz — because it’s about time I catch up with the rest of the book blogosphere!
Dead Until Dark: Sookie Stackhouse #1 by Charlain Harris — because it’s about time I catch up with the rest of the world!
the Mental Floss History of the World by Erik Sass and Steve Wiegand — because I’m a nerd.
If you’re a library-goer, what are some of your favorite things about your library?
About the Blogger
My name is Jackie, and I am a millennial / mother / Michigander / blogger / wannabe runner / accountant / local library enthusiast / gamer, kinda. This is a personal blog, which means I’m not entirely certain what you’ll find here, but it will definitely not show up on the first page of Google search results.
By Golly, Ollie! 