What I Ate in One Year

Structured as a diary spanning a single year, this food memoir records twelve months of meals eaten in restaurants, home kitchens, on film sets, at press events, and at tables around the world. The entries log what was on the plate, from elaborate dinners to plain weeknight suppers, but each meal becomes a doorway into something larger. Between the descriptions of cooking and eating, the author reflects on family life, the pleasures and frustrations of his work, friendships old and new, and the strangers and acquaintances who share his table. Scattered recipes and travel anecdotes sit alongside more searching passages about aging, parenthood, and the steady passage of time. Food here is less a subject than a lens, a way of marking the calendar and measuring how a life and a family keep changing. There are celebrations and ordinary days, moments of comfort and moments of grief, and an undertow of mourning for what and whom has been lost. Warm, candid, and frequently funny, the book uses the simple daily ritual of eating to consider love, loss, and the bracing awareness of what may still come, building a portrait of a year, and a life, told one meal at a time.