Walking on Walnuts

After eight years as a struggling artist and waitress, Nancy Ring decided to find a "survival job" that would bring satisfaction as well as survival. Armed with only chutzpah and a love of baking instilled by generations of her family, she answered a newspaper ad seeking an assistant pastry chef. So began a roller-coaster ride of apprenticeships in New York's high-pressured, ego-infested, and sometimes rat-infested, kitchens.

In this culinary memoir, Nancy Ring combines funny and poignant stories of love and work with warm remembrances of a family that celebrates food with gusto and cherishes memories with passion.





Through it all, Nancy is sustained by her memories of her Jewish family, and the recipes that were handed down to her through generations. Blintzes, mandelbrot, fruit compote, all made in the steamy kitchens of her relatives, come wafting back to her in times of grief and celebration. It's what fortifies her determination to make it on her own terms--as an artist, as a chef, and as a woman. -->

"Mouthwatering, warm, painfully funny, Walking on Walnuts is the perfect bedtime book for anyone who has ever read a cookbook for solace or a memoir for fellowship."
--Louise Erdrich, author of Tales of Burning Love and The Beet Queen

"From the first page to the last, I could not put this book down. Not even to make the mouthwatering Fig and Sun-Dried Cranberry Rugelach, or the fabulous Burnt Orange Ice Cream. My congratulations to the chef."
--Maida Heatter, author of Maida Heatter's New Book of Great Desserts

"Equal parts memoir, recipe collection, food-lore compendium and family history, Walking on Walnuts is a flavorful mélange....Imaginatively written, engrossing and fun."
--Suzanne Curley, Newsday

"Walking on Walnuts is part [Ring's] own story, part family history, part cookbook--and all delicious....This book is filled with kernels of joy and wisdom. I'm getting one for my mother."
--Marcia Abramson, Detroit Free Press