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Saturday Beans & Sunday Suppers: Kitchen Stories from Mary's Farm
From the early 1960s to the present you'll find recipes, memories, & essays from Edie Clark, longtime columnist for Yankee Magazine.
- GenresNonfictionFood
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
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38 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 22, 2022
This was lent to me by a friend, and while I had read Edie Clark's columns in Yankee magazine, I wasn't familiar with her story. I really enjoyed everything about this book - the warmth, honesty, details, writing, recipes, stories, and humor. I liked the way it was laid out, by decade. There were a few chapters that I liked so much I read them to my husband: "A Vermont mystery," "A kitchen for life," "Pizza on the porch," and "Cod cheeks and ale" (probably our favorite, as we've been to Newfoundland three times and could totally relate to her story. Great reading for a cold winter's day!
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November 15, 2019Nice read about the central place that cooking has in the author's life as she pursues an off-the-beaten-track life in New England, from her childhood in the 1960s until the early 2000s, along with a collection of promising recipes (e.g., beans and beef stew).
December 7, 2017
Great essays on life, cooking and many recipes are included.
December 3, 2024
Loved this book but I have always loved anything she wrote for Yankee Magazine. She will be missed.
March 16, 2026
I loved this and I now want to read everything Edie Clark ever wrote
April 2, 2016
What a delightful book! I enjoyed each and every chapter. My dear friend, Nan, gave me this book several years ago and I decided to give it a try, starting on the day before Thanksgiving. It was the perfect sort of book to read during the busy holiday season and I read one or two chapters each night. Each chapter includes a recipe and I marked all but one or two to try.
On food and memory:
When I sat down to write this book, I believed I was going to write about some favorite New England foods and include the recipes for each. But as the book progressed, I realized that food cannot be separated from place and memory, family and events from the past. In a way, then, there is no more powerful memoir than the food itself, a sensory cue strong enough to conjure the past as present, the present as past. Aromas and touch can bring back the pageant of what came before.
and
Food, made by our own hands or passed to us from loved ones, is, without parallel and without guise, our lifeblood. It is what creates us, mind and body and spirit. Some food is simply nourishment, passed to us through a window of a fast-food chain and eaten from our laps as we navigate traffic. This is hardly food, only fuel, and even that is questionable nourishment. Food created by us and for us is our substance, the essence of love and reminiscence.
Final Thoughts:
I knew nothing about Edie Clark before reading this culinary delight and now I'm curious about The Place He Made, her memoir about her husband's death from cancer, as well as The View from Mary's Farm, an earlier collection of her essays. She has that writing style of familiarity, reminding me of a cozy afternoon spent with a good friend, sharing a cup of hot tea and meaningful conversation. Highly recommend!
On food and memory:
When I sat down to write this book, I believed I was going to write about some favorite New England foods and include the recipes for each. But as the book progressed, I realized that food cannot be separated from place and memory, family and events from the past. In a way, then, there is no more powerful memoir than the food itself, a sensory cue strong enough to conjure the past as present, the present as past. Aromas and touch can bring back the pageant of what came before.
and
Food, made by our own hands or passed to us from loved ones, is, without parallel and without guise, our lifeblood. It is what creates us, mind and body and spirit. Some food is simply nourishment, passed to us through a window of a fast-food chain and eaten from our laps as we navigate traffic. This is hardly food, only fuel, and even that is questionable nourishment. Food created by us and for us is our substance, the essence of love and reminiscence.
Final Thoughts:
I knew nothing about Edie Clark before reading this culinary delight and now I'm curious about The Place He Made, her memoir about her husband's death from cancer, as well as The View from Mary's Farm, an earlier collection of her essays. She has that writing style of familiarity, reminding me of a cozy afternoon spent with a good friend, sharing a cup of hot tea and meaningful conversation. Highly recommend!
May 26, 2013
I loved reading these essays by Edie Clark (who wrote a column in Yankee magazine for years). Picked it up while on vacation this month, in The Trading Post in Kittery, ME.
Clark draws the reader into every one of them, relating her experiences to a larger community. I won't ever live in woods in New Hampshire, far from any city- and certainly don't anticipate ever cooking on an antique old woodstove - but I enjoyed reading about how she and her first husband (and then later, she and her 2nd husband Paul, the lover of her life) not only created their perfect kitchen space but also lived the epitome of what today is being touted as the "simple life" of growing what they ate or, if not possible, buying local. Clearly, it fostered community and a personal sense of accomplishment- not to mentioned satisfying a myriad of desires in the eat-good-food area.
She also loves to travel, and everywhere she finds awesome food, good people and interesting stories. A good read- the kind I like to pick up when I'm reading over lunch at the kitchen table. Finish a whole essay w/meal, get into the next one easily enough even if no time to read again for days.
Oh- and the book has several post-it tabs sticking up from its pages - recipes to photocopy before Saturday Beans & Sunday Suppers gets passed on to some other lucky reader! (Indian Pudding recipe looks good...)
Clark draws the reader into every one of them, relating her experiences to a larger community. I won't ever live in woods in New Hampshire, far from any city- and certainly don't anticipate ever cooking on an antique old woodstove - but I enjoyed reading about how she and her first husband (and then later, she and her 2nd husband Paul, the lover of her life) not only created their perfect kitchen space but also lived the epitome of what today is being touted as the "simple life" of growing what they ate or, if not possible, buying local. Clearly, it fostered community and a personal sense of accomplishment- not to mentioned satisfying a myriad of desires in the eat-good-food area.
She also loves to travel, and everywhere she finds awesome food, good people and interesting stories. A good read- the kind I like to pick up when I'm reading over lunch at the kitchen table. Finish a whole essay w/meal, get into the next one easily enough even if no time to read again for days.
Oh- and the book has several post-it tabs sticking up from its pages - recipes to photocopy before Saturday Beans & Sunday Suppers gets passed on to some other lucky reader! (Indian Pudding recipe looks good...)
Read
October 12, 2013A magical tour down the last 5 American decades, via Clark's rambunctious and heart warming autobiographical vignettes. With the food that went with them. Insight and poetry abound, plus some great recipes!
March 11, 2013
A wonderful incorporation of events, food, and memories in a small New Hampshire town - I loved reading the recipes and stories surrounding them.
November 15, 2015
Wonderful book! Her essays connected me to new people and books.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews