Commentary/review

The essays are pretty good, the food recipes probably even better (I haven’t tried the chicken – yet), but the performance is just puzzling. Why would an experienced presenter speak like that in front of a microphone is beyond me. Jumbled up sentences starting somewhere mid-way, accelerating with no pause to introduce the beginning of the next sentence, then pauses, slightly too long, as if expecting laughter, even when no comedy was on offer. I appreciate the expertise, the humanity, the opulence of vocabulary, even the occasional self-discovery but, all in all, the book is anxiety inducing.

Cover photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash