Dinner for One

March 28, 2022
Dacres, host of the eponymous podcast, recounts in this convivial if uneven debut how, after her “picture-perfect Paris life crumbled to bits like a flaky croissant,” she recovered herself through food. The book opens in 2016 with the author, a writer from the Bronx, divorced, heartbroken, alone in Paris, and estranged from her French Jewish–Algerian husband of three years after the slow breakdown of their marriage. What follows is a witty, though occasionally tedious, recollection of how she and her ex-husband, “The Frenchman,” met, their three-year “transatlantic” long-distance courtship, and their wedded life in Paris, where food became the third person in their blissful romance (“I was finally having my Meryl Streep in Julie & Julia moments”). Dacres is at her best when indulging readers in her culinary experiences—particularly the cathartic act of cooking solo that, post-divorce, allows her to heal: “Beneath the crispy, blistered skin was moist, flavorful meat,” she fondly writes of her first roast chicken. “The onions had taken on a sweet, delicious, paste-like texture. I beamed with pride.” Despite the book’s emphasis on food, though, the recipes at the end feel shoehorned in (among the many dishes mystifyingly clustered together are a leek risotto and raspberry clafoutis). Still, those craving a hopeful comeback story will find much to savor.