Alice Carbone Tench - Eating Again: The Recipes That Healed Me

advance praise for eating again :

Alice Carbone Tench knows that cooking is a spiritual practice: we seek, we bond, and we heal by preparing meals with our hands. Spending time with Eating Again feels like hanging out in the kitchen with a cool, trustworthy confidante, sharing recipes and memories and maybe a few tears. Alice holds nothing back, and shell make you want to cook (and live) the same way.

Jeff Gordinier, author of Hungry: Eating, Road-Tripping, and Risking It All with the Greatest Chef in the World

There is nothing in the world I love more than a cookbook that tells a personal story, and Alice Carbone Tench has written a beautiful book. Her bright, genuine tone and vibrant takes on Italian food will transport you. While one can experience her joy-filled Instagram videos, the book tells the deeper story. The connection to her history and to her family both from Piemonte and Apulia, and the story of her deep relationship to her grandmotherreally inform this collection. What a great book of easy to execute (and coincidentally) vegetarian recipes!

Michelin-Starred chef Patti Jackson

Through Alices writing and her recipes, you can feel her struggles with unhealthy eating patterns, her love for her grandma, even the warmth of sunshine in Tuscany. This is more than a cookbook; its a creamy frittata for your heart and soul.

Julie Cohen, director of Julia , the new documentary on Julia Child, and RBG

Eating Again is a cookbook thats focused on whole-person health and infused with the flavors of Italy. Her recipes are the highlight of the book, but they wouldnt be the same without the personal stories interspersed between sections. As the recipes invite people to Tenchs table, the stories open up her life and heart. They surround ideas of home and body image and venture from childhood to motherhood with grace, honesty, and compassion.

Melissa Wuske, Foreword Reviews

EATING
AGAIN

EATING AGAIN

The RECIPES THAT
HEALED ME

ALICE CARBONE TENCH

Copyright 2022 Alice Carbone Tench

ISBN 978-1-942762-80-5 eBook

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage or retrieval system now known or hereafter invented except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper without permission in writing from the publisher:
.

F ood photography: Alice Carbone Tench

Cover photo: Roman Cho

Cover design: Naomi Rosenblatt

The following recipes were photographed by Andrew MacPherson :
Stuffed Tomatoes, Peperonata, Bread Meatballs, Bicerin of Turin, and Chocolate Salami

Food Styling: Alice Carbone Tench and Erica Canales

Production and lighting: Erica Canales

Hair and Makeup: Erica Canales

To Catherine

May this book be for you a window into your roots,

to always remember where you come from.

May these recipes remind you of me when Ill be gone

and may Italian food guide you when

youll be hungry for more,

for change, for life.

And to Cei and Diane

I wouldn't have sliced the first onion

if it hadn't been for you.

I love you very much.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

I never meant to write a cookbook. When I began to cook on Instagram, in the spring of 2018, I did it because I needed help; I needed to be seen and heard. I think I needed witnesses, in my audience, to hold me accountable in my personal recovery from eating disorders. I also needed support in my healing journey as a new mother and wife who had lost herself as a woman.

My two wonderful therapists, Cei and Diane, had suggested food as a means of getting back in touch with myself a long time before the first recipe went on camera. But I wasnt ready when they first had suggested that I mindfully slice an onion, staying in whatever discomfort, or ease, Id discover. I didnt know that I was a good cook, I didnt know that I could remember all the recipes from my childhood, and I didnt know how much I loved cooking.

No, I never meant to write a cookbook, but I need my recipes written somewhere so that Catherine can find them when she grows up, and so I wont have to log onto my website every time I forget an ingredient.

Thats how I began to write this book.

As I went through each recipe, I would find similarities and connections between the essays I was writing on my blog and the stories behind every dish.

And so, this book wrote itself.

A few years ago, I had tried to write a food memoir tentatively titled The Year I Began to Cook , but nothing was right about itthe agent, the stories, and the way every feeling felt forced, wrong, uncomfortable.

Nothing about this book was ever forced, difficult, or unpleasant. Its the first time in my life that I have experienced a level of easiness, trust, and comfort that words can hardly describe.

This book was meant to be.

With every dish and every story, I want to share with you the ingredients of my favorite recipe: the one that made me the woman I am today, a woman I often struggle with, and yet a woman I finally love and respect. These are the recipes that healed me.

I want to give you access to the story of a curious 8-year-old in the Italian Alps approaching the kitchen for the first time, and also of a young woman suffering from bulimia who ran away from it, and ultimately of a mother and a wife who traveled across the world to rediscover her roots and the ingredients to a life worth loving.

Most of the food I make, as you know or will soon discover, is very open to personalization; the quantities are rarely set in stone. I love dishes that can be adapted, and that allow cooks and food lovers to explore their creativity, discover new flavors, new directions, new combinations, and new ingredients. I am not a trained chef. I didnt go to culinary school. I learned to cook by watching my mother and my grandmother, and it is from them that I learned the art of tasting, of observing, and of trusting my hands and my instinct with salt, sugar, oil, or herbs.

As my recovery progressed, I began to be more and more involved in the social aspect of food. Part of my work in the field is doing everything I can to create a society in which culinary self-care (which means culinary joy, health, positivity, and bounty), is not a luxury. Healthy food, the pleasure of food, and the knowledge we access in order to make good choices when we buy groceries shouldnt be prohibitive, unsustainable, or something for only the richest.

Bens life motto is live a good life and help others do the same. As my blessings in life grew, so did my eagerness to make sure I did just that. I happen to do it from the kitchen.

So, please have fun with these recipes! Use each as a canvas, and paint your version of it. Keep an open mind, dont be afraid, and never merely endure food. Never merely endure life. This life, like a good pantry, has all the tools and the ingredients for the best possible meal!

Set the table, and buon appetito!

NOTE

For precision, all the recipes are in metric system (grams, milliliters, etc.). Thats how I have created them, with my Italian brain, but I have also added a conversion for your convenience.