Recipes for a Perfect Marriage, Morag Prunty

Book Review: To say this book is my new favorite is to put it lightly. For anyone who is thinking about marriage, in a relationship, married or even single; this book is definitely a must read. There are so many elements in this book that I identified with. Most of the storyline was like reading my own life in print. I learned to love my husband all over again, stronger, deeper and with more respect that I ever have in the past. I learned to see my husband in a new and vastly more endearing light.

Recipes for a Perfect Marriage is written from two perspectives, and captures the lives of three generations of Irish women. Bernadine (the grandmother), and Tressa (the grandaughter) are the primary storytellers, but woven in between is the life of the somewhat distantly acknowledged Niamh (Tressa's mother & Bernadine's daughter). This beautifully written story is about the loves, lives & men that deeply influence the lives of Bernadine & Tressa, primarily their husbands. Stitched together like the pages of a treasured family recipe book, this story deals with the ingredients that keep a marriage together, the love that grows and blossoms like a well tended garden, the courage it takes to love the right man, and the fortitude needed to know what is right and what is wrong.

Love is a choice. It is not a mere emotion, and it is not something you can simply indulge in. If true love is what you are looking for, then you need to learn to look in the right places, in the right people, but most importantly you need to look for it within yourself. The journey that Tressa takes within the pages of this novel is one primarily of self-awakening. One where she discovers that love can be a fairytale if you don't get in the way of yourself. The journey that her grandmother takes is similar, but the realization takes a lifetime.

I remember standing at my grandmother's elbow watching as she effortlessly created the homemade delicacies that mark my childhood, recipes that I duplicate today in my own kitchen, and through her instructions the love I gained for cooking.

Similarly, there is a knowledge that is passed down from grandmother to child, from mother to child that can never be replaced, and never duplicated anywhere but through their hands; and it is those wisdoms that pass on from one generation to the next that help ease the path of the next generation if we are wise enough to take heed.

This book is divided by the ingredients needed in a marriage. How perfect your final product turns out is entirely up to you, just as that of any recipe. As Tressa journeys through her grandmother's recipes, she also learns that she must adapt them within her own capabilities, an interesting parallel indeed.

Book Synopsis:From Publishers WeeklyAfraid she is too old to wait for "The One," successful 38-year-old food writer Tressa Nolan marries the next man who asks her—her building super, amiable, kindly, not-very-educated Dan Mullins. Less than two months into her marriage, she realizes she does not love her husband, and never has. Horrified by his blue-collar habits, his desire to move from their Upper West Side apartment to Yonkers and his combative mother, Eileen, Tressa wishes desperately for the counsel of her late Irish grandmother, Bernadine, who taught her to cook and whose 50-year marriage to grandfather James seemed like the model of the perfect relationship. Along with old-fashioned recipes (e.g., Slow-Roasted Clove Ham and Honey Cake), Bernadine's tale, set in 1930s and '40s Ireland, is interspersed with Tressa's, in 2004 Manhattan. The two stories run parallel, each woman learning that as food too hurriedly made is inferior to its long-cooking counterpart, so the passionate love that immediately strikes the heart may be pale in comparison to the slow-growing, long-lasting love of marriage. A fine point, and nicely illustrated, but the mirror chapters becomes predictable, as whatever happens to one woman is sure to happen, in similar form, to her counterpoint. (May) Synopsis Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. Courtesy of Amazon.com