Walking on Walnuts

When Nancy landed her first job in one of Manhattan's hottest restaurants, she entered a world of long hours and hard work, where only the most talented and tenacious survive, let alone triumph. From the dangerously high-pressured kitchen of LaCoupe to the unheated, rat-infested kitchen of Toy to the cutthroat three-star kitchen of Acroama, backstabbing, fierce competition, stolen recipes, finicky customers, and hot-tempered chefs were all part of the brew.
Throughout her apprenticeship, Nancy is sustained by memories of her immigrant Jewish family evoked by recipes that have been handed down to her through a long line of strong women. The aroma of homemade blintzes, mandelbrot, taiglach, and rugelach comes wafting back to her in times of grief and celebration, recalling stories of relatives who fled Russia and found new lives in America, who sabotaged the Nazis and survived the Holocaust.
Meanwhile, Nancy struggles to reconcile the multitude of contradictions in her own life: putting off her painting while pursuing her pastry, withstanding abuse from men at work while yearning to meet Mr. Right, remaining close to her family while guarding her hard-won independence. Fortified by the wisdom of her forebears, she negotiates the maze of choices life offers her, determined to make it on her own terms - as an artist, as a chef, and as a woman.

Painter, poet, and pastry chef Ring uses her dual experience as a struggling artist and struggling chef as a basis for this ambitious autobiography, but it is marred by too many themes and unsophisticated writing. Living in New York City and waiting on tables to support herself while she pursued her art, Ring was unhappy, unfulfilled, and barely making ends meet. She decided to use her baking skills, learned in the kitchens of the strong Jewish immigrant women in her family, to change her ``survival job'' into something less demeaning and abusive than she felt waitressing to be. So begins her journey into the kitchens of New York's finest restaurants and a world where she could use her creativity and her heritage to find personal and professional fulfillment. On top of her own story, Ring layers the stories of her grandparents, glimpses into New York's restaurant scene, her romance with another chef/artist, mounds of walnut lore, and some favorite recipes. The unfortunate result is an undigestible and overwritten mix--often engaging but ultimately too unweildy for Ring's limited powers of expression. Her most glaring literary error is her injudicious use of baking similes; ``A book is like a cake,'' she begins her acknowledgements, and there is hardly a page after that doesn't contain at least one similar platitude: ``Summer in the city is as hot and heavy as overworked bread dough, too thick to rise and too tight to roll. No one is dancing. But they are working. Just because the tar is melting in the street like fudge over a double boiler doesn't mean that anybody's getting the day off.'' Which explains why this book collapses like a souffl‚ that's been beaten to death. (illustrations by the author, not seen) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The characters in what Ring calls her "restaurant stories," and the New York City restaurants themselves, are based on real people and real restaurants. Although this is primarily a work of nonfiction, she has slightly changed events and chronology; but the names and descriptions of her family members are real and the episodes of their lives are true. She gives readers an account of life in New York's restaurant kitchens she worked as an assistant pastry chef, interwoven with memories of her colorful, Jewish immigrant family that fled Russia and later the Holocaust for a new life in the U.S. Scattered throughout the book are recipes that have been handed down from generation to generation, including Grandma Selma's mandelbrot cookies, Papa Eddy's favorite compote, Great-Grandma Esther Hanna's taiglach, peach and honey upside-down cake, and fig apple pie. Filled with warmth, humor, and sadness, this is an unforgettable portrait of one woman's family and her determination to succeed. George Cohen