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9781911590484

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"'An intense, thought-provoking enquiry into the very nature of cooking, which stayed with me long after I finished it' - Nigella Lawson 'One of the most original food books I've ever read, at once intelligent and sensuous, witty, provoking and truly delicious, a radical feast of flavours and ideas.' - Olivia Laing 'Small Fires is a hypnotically riveting and exhilaratingly thought-provoking read. As nourishing as the recipes contained, this book will forever change your experience of cooking, and is an absolute joy to read.' - Lara Williams 'Small Fires is a tender, electric, intimately transformative work. Rebecca May Johnson has written her own glowing epic, reshaping the notion of the recipe as a text alive with possibility. In her hands, recipes become memory objects, acts of translation, expansive spaces full of feeling' - Nina Mingya Powles 'Destined to become essential reading for anyone interested in writing about food... Bold, beautiful, daring... It is a book that changed me' - Rachel Roddy 'Small Fires is a smart, creative and thoughtful book: it challenges us to think more about how and why we cook, and confounds our expectations of what food writing can be' - Ruby Tandoh 'I loved it start to finish - bliss to be in the kitchen with Rebecca May Johnson, with one eye firmly on the movable pleasures of cooking and eating, always... One for you if you like A Ghost in the Throat, The Argonauts, MFK Fisher and fried foods of any and all descriptions' - Anna Kinsella, author of Look Here 'Liberating... a new way to write about food' - Jonathan Nunn (Vittles) 'This is a simply brilliant book. Raucously funny and searingly intelligent. It will make you wonder why writing about food and writing about anything aren't more like this' - Amelia Horgan, author of Lost in Work: Escaping Capitalism 'At the start of her first book, writer, academic and fearless boundary-basher Johnson confides a desire to ""blow up the kitchen"". Small Fires does exactly that, rebuilding something epic from morsels of funny memoir, acute social criticism and food writing the likes of which you'll never have read before. Taking its prompts from 10 years spent cooking in as many different kitchens, it reclaims that domestic space as one of intensely physical thought... Rich in pleasure and revelation.' - Observer 'A manifesto for kitchen liberation and the radical possibilities of eating.' - Refinery29 'Small Fires is a manifesto for reclaiming cooking as an intellectual act, railing against centuries of the kitchen being dismissed as a place where women mindlessly make food to sustain men... a rewarding book that stayed with me - and, like all brilliant food writing, it made me think twice about what I choose to eat and who I eat it with... a brave, honest book.' - Sunday Times 'Small Fires possesses an intellectual fleet footedness and exuberance akin to the writing of Deborah Levy or Rebecca Solnit, as sentences skip between mischievous punning and impassioned agitation... the enthusiasm of the writing here is generous, embracing and emboldening.' - i news"

'An intense, thought-provoking enquiry into the very nature of cooking, which stayed with me long after I finished it' - Nigella Lawson 'One of the most original food books I've ever read, at once intelligent and sensuous, witty, provoking and truly delicious, a radical feast of flavours and ideas.' - Olivia Laing 'Small Fires is a hypnotically riveting and exhilaratingly thought-provoking read. As nourishing as the recipes contained, this book will forever change your experience of cooking, and is an absolute joy to read.' - Lara Williams 'Small Fires is a tender, electric, intimately transformative work. Rebecca May Johnson has written her own glowing epic, reshaping the notion of the recipe as a text alive with possibility. In her hands, recipes become memory objects, acts of translation, expansive spaces full of feeling' - Nina Mingya Powles 'Destined to become essential reading for anyone interested in writing about food... Bold, beautiful, daring... It is a book that changed me' - Rachel Roddy 'Small Fires is a smart, creative and thoughtful book: it challenges us to think more about how and why we cook, and confounds our expectations of what food writing can be' - Ruby Tandoh 'I loved it start to finish - bliss to be in the kitchen with Rebecca May Johnson, with one eye firmly on the movable pleasures of cooking and eating, always... One for you if you like A Ghost in the Throat, The Argonauts, MFK Fisher and fried foods of any and all descriptions' - Anna Kinsella, author of Look Here 'Liberating... a new way to write about food' - Jonathan Nunn (Vittles) 'This is a simply brilliant book. Raucously funny and searingly intelligent. It will make you wonder why writing about food and writing about anything aren't more like this' - Amelia Horgan, author of Lost in Work: Escaping Capitalism 'At the start of her first book, writer, academic and fearless boundary-basher Johnson confides a desire to blow up the kitchen . Small Fires does exactly that, rebuilding something epic from morsels of funny memoir, acute social criticism and food writing the likes of which you'll never have read before. Taking its prompts from 10 years spent cooking in as many different kitchens, it reclaims that domestic space as one of intensely physical thought... Rich in pleasure and revelation.' - Observer 'A manifesto for kitchen liberation and the radical possibilities of eating.' - Refinery29 'Small Fires is a manifesto for reclaiming cooking as an intellectual act, railing against centuries of the kitchen being dismissed as a place where women mindlessly make food to sustain men... a rewarding book that stayed with me - and, like all brilliant food writing, it made me think twice about what I choose to eat and who I eat it with... a brave, honest book.' - Sunday Times

'An intense, thought-provoking enquiry into the very nature of cooking, which stayed with me long after I finished it' - Nigella Lawson 'One of the most original food books I've ever read, at once intelligent and sensuous, witty, provoking and truly delicious, a radical feast of flavours and ideas.' - Olivia Laing 'Small Fires is a hypnotically riveting and exhilaratingly thought-provoking read. As nourishing as the recipes contained, this book will forever change your experience of cooking, and is an absolute joy to read.' - Lara Williams 'Small Fires is a tender, electric, intimately transformative work. Rebecca May Johnson has written her own glowing epic, reshaping the notion of the recipe as a text alive with possibility. In her hands, recipes become memory objects, acts of translation, expansive spaces full of feeling' - Nina Mingya Powles 'Destined to become essential reading for anyone interested in writing about food... Bold, beautiful, daring... It is a book that changed me' - Rachel Roddy 'Small Fires is a smart, creative and thoughtful book: it challenges us to think more about how and why we cook, and confounds our expectations of what food writing can be' - Ruby Tandoh 'I loved it start to finish - bliss to be in the kitchen with Rebecca May Johnson, with one eye firmly on the movable pleasures of cooking and eating, always... One for you if you like A Ghost in the Throat, The Argonauts, MFK Fisher and fried foods of any and all descriptions' - Anna Kinsella, author of Look Here 'Liberating... a new way to write about food' - Jonathan Nunn (Vittles) 'This is a simply brilliant book. Raucously funny and searingly intelligent. It will make you wonder why writing about food and writing about anything aren't more like this' - Amelia Horgan, author of Lost in Work: Escaping Capitalism 'At the start of her first book, writer, academic and fearless boundary-basher Johnson confides a desire to blow up the kitchen . Small Fires does exactly that, rebuilding something epic from morsels of funny memoir, acute social criticism and food writing the likes of which you'll never have read before. Taking its prompts from 10 years spent cooking in as many different kitchens, it reclaims that domestic space as one of intensely physical thought... Rich in pleasure and revelation.' - Observer 'A manifesto for kitchen liberation and the radical possibilities of eating.' - Refinery29

Author Information

Rebecca May Johnson is a writer and academic whose writing brings critical practices into everyday life. She has written reviews and features for Fantastic Man, Times Literary Supplement, The Happy Reader, LRB online, Financial Times, the Guardian, and AnOther, among others. She also uses online publishing to conduct stylistic experiments: her essay 'I Dream of Canteens' was published via TinyLetter and gained widespread acclaim, winning 'The Browser' prize for the best piece on the internet in April 2019. Her anonymous waitressing series was voted in the Observer Food Monthly 'Top 50' of 2018. She was finalist in the 'Young British Foodies' writing prize judged by Marina O'Loughlin and Yotam Ottolenghi for writing published on her site Dinner Document. Small Fires is her first book.

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