⇒ PDF The Temporary Bride A Memoir of Love and Food in Iran Jennifer Klinec 9781844088232 Books

The Temporary Bride A Memoir of Love and Food in Iran Jennifer Klinec 9781844088232 Books

Download As PDF : The Temporary Bride A Memoir of Love and Food in Iran Jennifer Klinec 9781844088232 Books

The Temporary Bride A Memoir of Love and Food in Iran Jennifer Klinec 9781844088232 Books

I must confess that my first disappointment with this book was that none of the recipes for the food that is so vividly described in it are included. The author, who not only makes her living as a chef and who based many of her far-flung travels on her curiosity about the food she would experience there, goes into great detail describing ingredients and dishes without ever sharing a single recipe. I was expecting (hoping) to find the inclusion of recipes for some of the Persian food she was learning to cook and was more than a little disappointed to find that such a fabulous dish as Persian rice, with its incredible bottom-of-the-pot crust, was given a mere description without including how to make it.
(The lack of recipes is not why I gave this book three stars - you can jump to the last paragraph to find that out.)

The story here is about a woman who goes to Iran in order to learn how to make Iranian dishes from home cooks, but as the title implies, she finds more than food there. (Unfortunately for us, as I will keep harping, she doesn't leave us with any of the recipes she learns!)

In the beginning of the book, the storytelling is jumbled and difficult to follow. Here is a young woman who heads off to expensive international boarding schools from her home in Canada, and who travels to far-flung destinations during her breaks from school, after which she magically lands a job in the financial sector in London where she manages to make piles of money with no real explanation as to how all of that was accomplished. Since her parents were very wealthy, I guess it is left to the reader to connect the dots and assume that her parents paid for everything or that she had some kind of crazy trust fund or that it all happened magically, but who knows? There are too few details about that part of her life, which is too bad because it is that which ultimately allows her to shift gears so spectacularly and take the path which becomes the basis for the remainder of the book.

Thankfully, there is much more clarity in Klinec's writing about Iran, and that is what makes it by far the most interesting part of the book. Here, the author offers glimpses into a way of life that few Westerners are able to see. Although Klinec remains fairly non-judgmental about the way women live in Iran, I found it fascinating to find out, to list just a few things, that:
- teen boys regularly "accidentally" brush up against Western women.
- buses have dividers - women in the back, men up front.
- police can, and do, stop to interrogate couples walking together on the streets.
There are many more cultural surprises as well.

As with other books I've read that were written by women who don't feel as though they fit into the culture in which they were raised, Klinec initially finds excitement in trying to blend into this world, but unlike many of those other authors who become accepting of (sometimes abhorrent) cultural traditions, Klinec eventually finds that her excitement lies in trying to find ways to get around the restrictiveness she is bound by, and not always with success.

If you want a vivid look into this largely forbidden world, Klinec does an excellent job of making the reader feel as though he/she is there. Reading about a culture that is so vastly different from my own was fascinating and I absolutely loved that part of the book. But the jumbled beginning and hugely belabored last third of the book, knocked this down to three stars. The inclusion of recipes might have helped save it, but would't have been enough to redeem the faults


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The Temporary Bride A Memoir of Love and Food in Iran Jennifer Klinec 9781844088232 Books Reviews

yaaftan (n.) Persian word meaning to find something beautiful in a place where it is least expected or where you had to struggle.

This was a darling little book! It touched on all of the subjects I enjoy reading about most travel, food, Iran, and looooove. Sigh. I almost don’t want to write anything about it because Klinec unveils herself to readers page by page. You’ll eventually learn where she was born, which countries her parents emigrated from, and how she eventually finds herself globe trekking in search of herself, and the foods that represent family and home in different countries.

What I will say is that she has a way with words and descriptions that can put you both in the kitchen or in an inner city walled garden. This girl can write! I was a nervous wreck throughout because I wasn’t sure if there would be a happy ending or not, and leave it to her to not quiet my anxiety until the last TWO pages! I will leave you with one exerpt–but just the one!

"Iranian rice is unlike any other. It isn’t boiled or steamed or thrown unceremoniously into a rice cooker. Iranian rice is first soaked and bathed like a Hindu princess, rinsed in three changes of just-warm water. It goes into the pot with a spoonful of salt, carefully simmering just until it begins to yield, its determined character and bite remaining intact. Finally it is drained and returned to the pot in a footpool of melted butter, over the gentlest of heat, until it is so impossibly light and fluffy it could fill quilts and pillows of Buckingham Palace."

"Tipped out into a wide, shallow serving bowl, each grain of rice is perfectly separate and served piled high like wedding confetti, adorned with streaks of bright yellow saffron and dotted with a final, loving pat of yet more butter. But the best part of all is still to come the tahdig. A crisp, buttery golden crust of rice left to scorch on the bottom of the pan to just the right thickness, the tahdig is shattered into gem-like shards and scattered on top of the rice. It crunches and crackles and splinters in your mouth as you eat."

Dang! And that’s just rice. See what I mean? Great read. Definitely up there with other foodie/travel favorites. Highly recommend!
I must confess that my first disappointment with this book was that none of the recipes for the food that is so vividly described in it are included. The author, who not only makes her living as a chef and who based many of her far-flung travels on her curiosity about the food she would experience there, goes into great detail describing ingredients and dishes without ever sharing a single recipe. I was expecting (hoping) to find the inclusion of recipes for some of the Persian food she was learning to cook and was more than a little disappointed to find that such a fabulous dish as Persian rice, with its incredible bottom-of-the-pot crust, was given a mere description without including how to make it.
(The lack of recipes is not why I gave this book three stars - you can jump to the last paragraph to find that out.)

The story here is about a woman who goes to Iran in order to learn how to make Iranian dishes from home cooks, but as the title implies, she finds more than food there. (Unfortunately for us, as I will keep harping, she doesn't leave us with any of the recipes she learns!)

In the beginning of the book, the storytelling is jumbled and difficult to follow. Here is a young woman who heads off to expensive international boarding schools from her home in Canada, and who travels to far-flung destinations during her breaks from school, after which she magically lands a job in the financial sector in London where she manages to make piles of money with no real explanation as to how all of that was accomplished. Since her parents were very wealthy, I guess it is left to the reader to connect the dots and assume that her parents paid for everything or that she had some kind of crazy trust fund or that it all happened magically, but who knows? There are too few details about that part of her life, which is too bad because it is that which ultimately allows her to shift gears so spectacularly and take the path which becomes the basis for the remainder of the book.

Thankfully, there is much more clarity in Klinec's writing about Iran, and that is what makes it by far the most interesting part of the book. Here, the author offers glimpses into a way of life that few Westerners are able to see. Although Klinec remains fairly non-judgmental about the way women live in Iran, I found it fascinating to find out, to list just a few things, that
- teen boys regularly "accidentally" brush up against Western women.
- buses have dividers - women in the back, men up front.
- police can, and do, stop to interrogate couples walking together on the streets.
There are many more cultural surprises as well.

As with other books I've read that were written by women who don't feel as though they fit into the culture in which they were raised, Klinec initially finds excitement in trying to blend into this world, but unlike many of those other authors who become accepting of (sometimes abhorrent) cultural traditions, Klinec eventually finds that her excitement lies in trying to find ways to get around the restrictiveness she is bound by, and not always with success.

If you want a vivid look into this largely forbidden world, Klinec does an excellent job of making the reader feel as though he/she is there. Reading about a culture that is so vastly different from my own was fascinating and I absolutely loved that part of the book. But the jumbled beginning and hugely belabored last third of the book, knocked this down to three stars. The inclusion of recipes might have helped save it, but would't have been enough to redeem the faults