Try One Bite - by Karen Stabiner (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

For fans of Tamar Adler and Ruth Reichl, a poignant yet comic tale of how one woman dodged a late-life crisis, discovered her best self, and fell back in love with her childhood sweetheart: restaurants.

Karen Stabiner has found community--and joy--in restaurants since she was six years old. So when one big lie dismantled her life--ended a thirty-year marriage, cost her the house where her daughter grew up, and sent her from Los Angeles to New York and back again in pursuit of work--she did the only thing she could think of to get herself through it: She went out to dinner. With a guy she'd known for forty years; with family and friends; by herself. Again and again and again.

Dinner dates with that old friend promised a happy ending, but life is not a rom-com. This story is about what really happens when we have to rebuild our lives from the ground up--what almost was, what never will be, the surprises we can create for ourselves. It's about how to retool our lives rather than disappear. Like they say: A woman's work is never done.

Fiery, funny, and full of flavor, Try One Bite is one determined woman's account of pushing back so she doesn't get pushed aside--and of discovering herself in the process.

Review Quotes

"Read this book because you love memoirs, love people and love learning how they tick. Read it because you love food and the food world. Read it because you love very good writing. Karen is such wonderful company--I was sad to say good-bye when I closed the book."--Dorie Greenspan, five-time James Beard Award-winning cookbook author

"Try One Bite delighted me from the opening betrayal to the beautiful ending--to thine own self be true. I felt an instant sisterhood of similarity and remembrance with Karen's beautifully written and relatable life."--Jamie Lee Curtis, Oscar-winning actor and producer

"Karen Stabiner's collection of heartfelt stories from a life well-nourished by food, restaurants, and hospitality reflect the myriad ways this industry nurtures and restores. Try One Bite is a moving reminder of why we do what we do."--Danny Meyer, restaurateur and New York Times best-selling author of What Could Possibly Go Right? and Setting the Table

"Restaurants have the potential to bring us back to the table. In Try One Bite, Karen Stabiner reminds us that a meal can nourish not only the body, but our sense of connection and belonging."--Alice Waters, New York Times best-selling author and founder of restaurants Chez Panisse and LULU

"Restaurants are frames for the canvas of relationships--an opportunity to make a friend, feed your soul, and fill your belly. In Try One Bite, Karen Stabiner puts her life back together one menu at a time, and how lucky we are to be seated right next to her."--Chris Bianco, two-time James Beard Award-winning chef, restaurateur, and author of Bianco

"How do you pick yourself up when life knocks you down? Karen Stabiner found community in restaurants, and her recipe for recovery rings true to me, equal parts comic, determined, and deeply felt."--Michael Solomonov, James Beard Award-winning chef and best-selling cookbook author

"'Restaurants and journalism, journalism and restaurants. . . .' Karen Stabiner wrestles with both worlds as verve and maturity lead her to find her hard-earned place in both."--Dorothy Kalins, author of The Kitchen Whisperers and founding editor of Saveur

About the Author

Karen Stabiner is a journalist whose essays have appeared in The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times. She is the author of eleven books, including Generation Chef, To Dance with the Devil: The New War on Breast Cancer (a New York Times Notable Book), and My Girl: Adventures with a Teen in Training. She has also written two cookbooks and two novels. Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Eater LA, Columbia Journalism Review, The New Yorker, Gourmet (a James Beard Award finalist), Saveur, Vogue, and Mother Jones. She lives in Santa Monica, CA.