Book: What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women & the Food That Tells Their Stories

February 1, 6:00 Via Zoom

You may already know that Eleanor Roosevelt was responsible for some of the worst food ever served in the White House, but did you know that she was using bad food as a way to get back at FDR for his infidelities? Or that Helen Gurley Brown, the original "Cosmo Girl," while declaring publicly that "Eating is sexy" and that she personally ate a lot of pasta ("I like it with a light cream sauce with mushrooms, peas and ham"), privately lived with a morbid fear of calories and said off the record, "I think you may have to have a tiny touch of anorexia nervosa to maintain an ideal weight...not a heavy case, just a little one!"

In our February selection: What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women & the Food That Tells Their Stories, author Laura Shapiro offers mini-portraits of these and other women and the ways their attitudes toward food shaped and reflected meaning in their lives. The other women include Hitler's mistress Eva Braun, William Wordsworth's sister Dorothy, and author Babara Pym.

Good news: If you don't have time to read the entire book, just read the stories that interest you. In our discussion, led by Dame Nina Barrett, we'll be invited to 

1. Talk about which of the stories spoke most deeply to us and why, and

2. Consider how we might tell our own mini-life stories if they focused on our relationship with food, i.e. Have certain eating patterns defined your life? Have your patterns changed at different points? Were there particular life events that shifted your relationship to food? Is your public relationship to food different from your private one? 

NOTE:

This meeting / book discussion will be via Zoom only – no charge but you must register here: before Friday  January 28    You will receive an email with the link to join the meeting 48 hours in advance