New Book
Named a Favorite Book for Southerners in 2020 by Garden & Gun. “Donovan is such a vivid writer—smart, raunchy, vulnerable and funny— that if her vaunted caramel cakes and sugar pies are half as good as her prose, well, I’d be open to even giving that signature buttermilk whipped cream she tops her desserts with a try.”—Maureen Corrigan, NPR. Noted chef and James Beard Award-winning essayist Lisa Donovan helped establish some of the South’s most important kitchens, and her pastry work is at the forefront of a resurgence in traditional desserts. Yet Donovan struggled to make a living in an industry where male chefs built successful careers on the stories, recipes, and culinary heritage passed down from generations of female cooks and cooks of color. At one of her career peaks, she made the perfect dessert at a celebration for food-world goddess Diana Kennedy. When Kennedy asked why she had not heard of her, Donovan said she did not know. “I do,” Kennedy said, “Stop letting men tell your story.” OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HUNGER is Donovan’s searing, beautiful, and searching chronicle of reclaiming her own story and the narrative of the women who came before her. Her family’s matriarchs found strength and passion through food, and they inspired Donovan’s accomplished career. Donovan’s love language is hospitality, and she wants to welcome everyone to the table of good food and fairness. Donovan herself had been told at every juncture that she wasn’t enough: she came from a struggling southern family that felt ashamed of its own mixed race heritage and whose elders diminished their women. She survived abuse and assault as a young mother. But Donovan’s salvations were food, self-reliance, and the network of women in food who stood by her. In the school of the late John Egerton, OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HUNGER is an unforgettable Southern journey of class, gender, and race as told at table.
About the Author:
Lisa Donovan is a James Beard award winning writer who has redefined what it means to be a “Southern baker” as the pastry chef to some of the South’s most influential chefs. She has been formative in developing, writing, and establishing a technique driven and historically rich narrative of traditional Southern pastry. Donovan is a regular contributor to Food & Wine and she has been a featured speaker at René Redzepi’s globally renowned MAD Symposium. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, Eater, LitHub, and Saveur. Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger is her first book.
Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger by Lisa Donovan, read by Lisa Donovan
Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger by Lisa Donovan Reviews:
“Lisa Donovan’s writing has such intensity and assertiveness. It spikes the adrenaline and creates tension in a way that feels almost athletic. And it’s through this toned and visceral prose that we are forced to reckon with Lisa’s most essential recipe: that respect is bred from unflinching truth and raw honesty. In life, and on these pages, Lisa charts a path of personal growth with brave transparency, eloquently acknowledging that life’s greatest challenges are not circumstance, but a calling.”—Ashley Christensen, James Beard Award-winning chef
“Lisa Donovan is one of the country’s great pastry chefs, but this isn’t a story about food, really. It’s about the strength of womanhood and motherhood. It’s about staring down the betrayals that women face. And it’s about the redemptive power, not of food itself, but of finding common cause in feeding others.”—Francis Lam, host, The Splendid Table
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