Showing results by narrator "Bee Wilson" in All Categories

Food is one of life's great joys. So why has eating become such a source of anxiety and confusion? Bee Wilson shows that in two generations the world has undergone a massive shift from traditional, limited diets to more globalized ways of eating, from bubble tea to quinoa, from Soylent to meal kits. Paradoxically, our diets are getting healthier and less healthy at the same time. For some, there has never been a happier food era than today: a time of unusual herbs, farmers' markets, and internet recipe swaps.

In Complicated Women, Bee Wilson explores the lives of ten women who achieved notoriety and influence in their own times and whose legacy is still felt today. In this collection of ten biographical essays, originally published in the London Review of Books, Wilson takes a candid look at her subjects and asks what it takes for a woman to make her mark in a world where legitimate sources of power are often denied.

One August day, months after her marriage abruptly ended, a heart-shaped baking tin fell at Bee Wilson’s feet: the same one she had used to bake her wedding cake twenty-three years prior. This discovery struck a wave of emotions that propelled her in search of others who have invested kitchen objects with magical and personal properties. A favorite wooden spoon or a saltshaker inherited from a parent: these and other items become powerful symbols of identity and memory, representing friendship, grief, love, superstition, safety, and political resistance.