Coming up, a delicious food memoir with recipes. A story about how a book can change the author.

Plus our distraction of the week. I'm Mel. I'm Dave. This is the Library of Lost Time.

First, a quick programming note, we will not be here next week. We are going on a combined

business pleasure trip. We're going to be in France for a little bit, and you will hear

again from us on February 14th. What's your book this week? I'm sharing a book I received from a dear

friend for my birthday. It's Cold Kitchen by Caroline Eden.

The author, Caroline Eden, has written for the Financial Times and The Guardian.

She's also authored a handful of cookbooks about Central Asia, Turkey, and Russia.

All of her writing combines travel stories with very sense-driven food writing and recipes.

This book, Cold Kitchen, is an exploration of the world that's grounded in her kitchen in Edinburgh.

The narrative covers a year in her life, and the book is divided into the four seasons.

Each chapter is an essay about an ingredient or a food memory that she has from her travels, like pies on a Russian railroad or a hike in

Scotland in search of cloudberries. Oh, that's nice. Her essay is seamlessly weave history, culture, and travel adventures with her observations.

She has a gift for making it feel very personal without making it feel overly intimate.

That's a fine line.

Her stories are threaded with references to other books and vivid descriptions of ingredients, it often feels

like you've been dropped into the middle of the action. A chapter called Better a Dinner of

Herbs starts like this. You're going to hear the word dulce in this quote. Dulse is a type of

red seaweed. Okay. Rain is rushing in from the North Sea, battering the wild greens and pot herbs.

The deluge, like a bird song or the distant buzzing of the very first lawnmower, is ringing in spring, a time of nervous and untrustworthy weather.

Whole banks of wild garlic are glistening and reeking down by the river tweed. There are buds on the trees, and blossom is promising just up ahead.

The land is dandelions, and the sea is dulce. Kitchens have their seasons, and in this subterranean world,

...