The Year of Miracles: Recipes About Love + Grief + Growing Things

As a big fan of Midnight Chicken, I was thrilled to read Risbridger's latest. Part memoir, part cookbook, The Year of Miracles is reminiscent of Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking for our pandemic times. I adore her conversational style and invaluable side notes on the recipes. It feels like she's standing alongside you in the kitchen or sharing stories over coffee. Well-written and immersive narrative cookbooks have a special place in my heart, and this is one of the best I've read. The recipes range from simple, quick fare to more complex dishes that require attention, focus, and process. These recipes and Risbridger's writing are culinary self-care and a beautiful reminder of the ways food nurtures our spirit as well as our body, builds connection, and evokes a sense of place and time.

There are two things I'd like people to know: 1) I cook from "Year of Miracles" at least once a week. It's easy food that makes you excited to eat. 2) Someone once told me that the definition of art is something that makes you want to live. "Year of Miracles" makes me want to live.

This book opens with a very moving poem by Marie Howe. Coincidentally, I have just heard Ms. Howe read some of her poems in a MasterClass. She has so much that is evocative to say as is surely the case in this introduction to The Year of Miracles. This is a heartfelt cookbook that includes 67 recipes set over the course of a year. In January, there are Cardamom Buns for example, while February has a Pistachio Pie. March calls for Storm at Sea Scones and Crisis Cardamom Coffee. So it goes over the course of this year landing finally on Fried Jam Sandwiches and then Insanity Noodles in December. Following is a kind of PS Spring chapter with Love & Dumplings. This is a cookbook that intersperses its recipes with a memoir about the author’s grief. Her life was changed when someone she loved became ill. There were the occasional miracles but also a sad inevitability. Through this experience came the writer’s conclusion that you have to make your own miracles. She shares some of how and what she did with these wonderful recipes. Read this one in the way that works for you. It could be for the memoir or the illustrations or the recipes filled with practicality (although they did not all look so easy to me). I loved how the book’s readers/cooks were invited in. Many thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA for this title. All opinions are my own.

The hardcover comes with a lovely ribbon bookmark which I only used once, I read the book in two sittings. It would have been one but I needed to eat dinner. There are several recipes I am looking forward to making, the banana bread and garlicky jacket potato soup in particular. Mostly though I loved reading this, I loved the ebb and flow of the authors emotions and how honest she was expressing love and grief and gratitude. I like to fold little stars as I read, this book was long enough to fold about 150.

This book reminds you what it means to be human; grief is a part of life. How we deal with that grief defines who we are as people. I love cookbook/memoir type books. They just speak to me. The Year of Miracles is a wonderful addition to that cannon. We don't talk about grief in our society. We do talk about food. Combining the two is genius. I got this book as an ARC through Netgalley and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm not sure what recipes I will make from this, but they sound delicious.

I had started reading this elsewhere. Bought one for a friend and another for myself. It’s a fabulous book. Highly recommend. However, I lowered the rating because the book is visibly warped by quite a bit as if it had gotten wet. Basically a damaged book. Don’t want to go through returning it, it’s readable. Just disappointed in the quality for a hard cover.

I received an ARC of The Year of Miracles by Ella Risbridger. This is a good story on love, loss, moving on, and cooking. There are great recipes in this book. We show are love by cooking, for those we love.

Bravo! Looking forward to buy your net book.

This is another brilliant book from Ella Risbridger! I'd hoped I'd like this book just as much as her first, Midnight Chicken, and I do - both the recipes & Risbridger's own stories interspersed within the book are so thoughtfully written (my favourite aspect of Midnight Chicken), and the recipes look just as delicious, comforting, and inviting as in Midnight Chicken. The cover and inside illustrations are beautiful too. I'm excited to try the jacket potato garlic soup (could anything sound more comforting?), rhubarb and custard cake, coconut pow, pistachio pie, and more.

Poignantly written. The grief and healing is poured into the recipes. Already tried a few. Lovely!!

I loved Midnight Chicken, and I love this even more. Ella Risbridger’s writing is just so gorgeous. The illustrations throughout make me want to frame every page. So many recipes yet to try, but those I’ve made so far have been delicious. I like that it’s rare for one of Ella’s recipes to require precision or fancy equipment, you can usually just make do with what you’ve got.

The book is wonderful but all the edges of the book are damaged. There was no bubblewrap, the book was simply put in a brown paper sleeve and shipped.