From Booklist
*Starred Review* I cook to comprehend the place Ive landed in, muses Ciezadlo early in her first book, a vividly written memoir of her adventures in travel and taste in the Middle East. Like any successful travelogue writer, she fills her pages with luminous, funny, and stirring portraits of the places and people she came across in her time abroad. But there is also, always, her passion for food, and through it, she parses the many conundrums she faced in her wanderings, such as the struggle to define identity, ethnic and personal, and the challenge of maintaining social continuity in wartime. The capstone to all her thoughtful ruminations is a mouthwatering final chapter collecting many of the dishes she describes earlier in the book. She does this all in writing that is forthright and evocative, and she reminds us that the best memoirs are kaleidoscopes that blend an authors life and larger truths to make a sparkling whole. --Taina Lagodzinski
Review
"Among the least political, and most intimate and valuable [books], to have come out of the Iraq war A carefully researched tour through the history of Middle Eastern food . filled with adrenalized scenes from war zones, scenes of narrow escapes and clandestine phone calls and frightening cultural misunderstandings. Ciezadlo is completely hilarious on the topic of trying to please her demanding new Lebanese in-laws. These things wouldnt matter much, though, if her sentences didnt make such a sensual, smart, wired-up sound on the page. Holding Day of Honey I was reminded of the way that, with a book of poems, you can very often flip through it for five minutes and know if youre going to like it; you get something akin to a contact high... readers will feel lucky to find her."
Dwight Garner, The New York Times
A passionate argument for the idea that whether its your mother-in-law or a military enemy, meeting over a meal eases differences, and that knowing the world means dining in it.
Bookforum
Capped off with a collection of mouthwatering recipes, many from Ciezadlos larger-than-life mother-in-law, Day of Honey turns thoughts on food into provocative food for thought.
BookPage
A lucid memoir of life in the war-torn Middle East . Through immersion in food and cooking, Ciezadlo grounded herself amid widespread instability while gaining special insight into a people forced to endure years of bloody conflict .This ambitious and multilayered book is as much a feast for the mind as for the heart.
Kirkus Reviews
[A] vividly written memoir . . . Like any successful travelogue writer, [Ciezadlo] fills her pages with luminous, funny, and stirring portraits. But there is also, always, her passion for food, and through it, she parses the many conundrums she faced in her wanderings, such as the struggle to define identity, ethnic and personal, and the challenge of maintaining social continuity in wartime. She does this all in writing that is forthright and evocative, and she reminds us that the best memoirs are kaleidoscopes that blend an authors life and larger truths to make a sparkling whole.
Booklist, starred review
Annia Ciezadlos Day of Honey is a gorgeous, mouthwateringly written book that convincingly demonstrates why, even with bombs going off all over the place, you gotta eat.
Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City
A riveting, insightful and moving story of a spirited people in wartime horror told with affection and humour. Food plays a part in the tellingunraveling layers of culture, history and civilization, revealing codes of behaviour and feelings of identity and making the book a banquet to be savored."
Claudia Roden, author of The New Book of Middle Eastern Food
A warm, hilarious, terrifying, thrilling, insanely smart debut book that gets deep inside of you and lets you see the Middle Eastand the worldthrough profoundly humanitarian eyes. And if that werent enough, theres also a phenomenal chapters worth of recipes. Buy this important book. Now.
James Oseland, editor-in-chief, Saveur
"Annia Ciezadlo combines 'mouthwatering' and the Middle East in this beautifully crafted memoir. She adds a new perspective to the region and leavens the stories of lives caught up in the tragedies of war, including her own, with recipes for understanding. She is a gifted writer and a perceptive analyst. Ciezadlos portraits are unforgettable."
Deborah Amos, author of Eclipse of the Sunnis: Power, Exile, and Upheaval in the Middle East and correspondent for National Public Radio
http://www.amazon.com/Day-Honey-Memoir-Food-Love/dp/1416583939/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303911667&sr=8-1
http://www.anniaciezadlo.com
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