Enjoying the Book: Libation a Bitter Alchemy

Title: Libation: A Bitter Alchemy by Deirdre Heekin



This is my first exposure to Deirdre Heekin and her writing. After getting married she and her new groom went to Italy to research Italian cooking, baking, and wine. To say they enjoy good food is an understatment. They then opened a bakery in Vermont. Over time they wound up running a restaurant serving local and seasonal foods and also growing their own grapes and making small batches of wine.

This is a memoir. The chapters are an interesting blend of an essay telling about a topic and her experience learning about it and how that topic relates to their current restauranteuring experience. In the nonfiction part of the chapter the reader may learn a few (or many) things on that topic. Then after that there is a story about the journey diving into grape growing and winemaking.

I find this a slow read that I don't want to rush. Heekin is brilliant with her prose. To speed read or skim this would be an insult. I like reading it one chapter at a time before bed. I don't do well reading this with the noise of two boys around or in noisy places. I like to read it slowly and really pay attention to the story and the prose, to savor it.

Heekin reminds me a bit of Martha Stewart in that she seeks the best and then learns all about it, loving learning all the while. She wants quality not quantity. Heekin does not come off as a know it all but rather a person with deep curiosities who goes on to satisfy those curiositities like a true autodidact and to put what she has learned into practice in her real life.

I requested this book from the Amazon Vine program. They offered it as a review copy. I am not a big wine lover but I enjoy slow food and can relate to wanting food and drink that is wholesome, real and fresh. I see this as a book about slow food albeit its main focus being wine, so that is why I was interested in reading this book. I also have an appreciation for winemaking having visited some wineries in Napa and Sonoma Valley on my honeymoon.

For me a book like this is best read chapter by chapter before bed, or while enjoying a relaxing day. It seems perfect for reading under a blanket by a roaring fire with a cup of your favorite hot beverage in the winter.

Enjoy!

I see also that Heekin has co-authored a book with her husband Caleb Barber about Italian slow food, "In Late Winter We Ate Pears: A Year of Hunger and Love".