Author Talk with Tasting: How to Share an Egg with Bonny Reichert

Thurs., Oct. 30 | 7 pm | In-person at the JCC | $36

"How to Share an Egg: A True Story of Hunger, Love and Plenty" by Bonny Reichert

Event includes a tasting of several recipes from Reichert's book.

A moving culinary memoir about the relationship between food and family, sustenance and survival, from a chef, award-winning journalist, and daughter of a Holocaust survivor. When 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 he found herself, in midlife, 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 imaged 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, dish by dish. Stepping into the kitchen to connect her past with her future, the author recounts the defining moments of her life in a poignant tale of scarcity and plenty: her colorful childhood in the restaurant business, 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. Throughout, cuisine is both an anchor and an identity; a source of joy and a signifier of survival.

Bonny Reichert is a chef and the author of "How to Share an Egg: A True Story of Hunger, Love and Plenty," one of NPR's best memoirs of the year. A National Magazine Award-winning journalist, Bonny honed her editorial skills in the journalism world before packing up her knives and heading to culinary school. In the years since, she has explored her relationship with food on the page, penning a chef column in the Globe and Mail and features in a variety of publications. Bonny holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction from King’s University. "How to Share an Egg: A True Story of Hunger, Love and Plenty" is a national bestseller in Bonny's native Canada, an Amazon editor's pick and it won the Dave Greber work-in-progress award in 2022.

This is a Jewish Book Council Program sponsored by Studio Lauren Zoll.

Host or Publisher JCC Indianapolis