Coffee and Book Club

Event Details

Event type: All Ages

Coffee and Book Club with special guest Bonny Reichert, author of How to Share an Egg: A True Story of Hunger, Love and Plenty.

Interview with the author led by Rina Barone, director of Stratford Arts & Lectures, followed by audience Q & A, and book signing/meet & greet.

Doors open at 1pm with ample time to purchase beverages and food if desired. The Livery Yard regular menu will be in affect. 

There are two ticket options available: general admission and general admission with signed copy of book. We will also have copies of Bonny's memoir on hand for purchase.

About the author:

Bonny Reichert is a National Magazine Award-winning journalist. She has been an editor at Today’s Parent and Chatelaine, and a columnist and regular contributor to The Globe and Mail. When she turned forty, she had a now-or-never feeling in her bones and quit her job to enroll in culinary school. After that, she began to explore her relationship with food on the page, seeing her childhood in the restaurant business and her background as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor in a new light. Bonny was born in Edmonton, Alberta, and lives in Toronto with her husband Michael and little dog, Bruno. Her three almost-adult children come and go. She holds a Master of Fine Art in creative nonfiction from the University of King’s College in Halifax and teaches writing at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies. In 2020, Bonny was longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize and in 2022, How to Share an Egg won the Dave Greber social justice writing award for a book-in-progress.

About the book:

A GLOBE & MAIL AND TORONTO STAR BESTSELLER

“I started crying on page one; a few pages later I burst into laughter. This beautifully written book takes readers on an emotional journey that is both heartbreaking and hopeful.” —Ruth Reichl, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Novel

“Absolutely transformative.” —People

“A mesmerizing memoir . . . Nimble and nourishing, this is not to be missed.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A moving culinary memoir about the relationship between food and family—and sustenance and survival—from a chef, award-winning Canadian journalist, and daughter of a Holocaust survivor.

When you’re raised by someone who once survived on potato peels and coffee grounds, you develop a pretty healthy respect for food.

Bonny Reichert avoided everything to do with the Holocaust until she found herself, in midlife, suddenly typing those words into an article she was writing. The journalist had grown up hearing stories about her father’s near-starvation and ultimate survival in Auschwitz-Birkenau, but she never imagined she would be able to face this epic legacy head on.

Then a chance encounter with a perfect bowl of borscht in Warsaw set Bonny on a journey to unearth her culinary lineage, and she began to dig for the roots of her food obsession, dish by dish. Tracing the defining moments of her life, from her colorful childhood in the restaurant business to the crumbling of her first marriage and the intensity of young motherhood, her decision to become a chef and that life-altering visit to Poland, the author recounts a tale of scarcity and plenty, stepping into the kitchen to connect her past to her future. Whether it's the flaky potato knishes and molasses porridge bread she learned to bake at her Baba Sarah’s elbow, the creamy vichyssoise she taught herself to cook in her tiny student apartment, or the brown butter eggs her father, now 93, still scrambles for her whenever she needs comfort, cuisine is both an anchor and an identity; a source of joy and a signifier of survival.

How to Share an Egg is a journey of deep flavors and surprising contrasts. By turns sweet, salty, sour, and bitter, this is one woman's search to find her voice as a writer, chef, mother and daughter. Do the tiny dramas of her own life matter in comparison to everything her father has seen and done? This moving exploration of heritage, inheritance, and self-discovery sets out to find the answer.

If you'd like to read a short Q & A with the author about writing her first book, you can do so here: https://rinabarone.substack.com/p/my-first-book-8b6

For more information, please visit our website: www.stratfordartsandlectures.com

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