The Irish Hungarian Guide to the Domestic Arts

The Irish Hungarian Guide to the Domestic Arts proves that the Rust Belt is the perfect backdrop for a whirlwind romance, that shopping at the discount grocery is really performance art, and that a half-acre lot in the middle of America is all you need to accommodate a field of dreams. This book is also a food memoir for the rest of us, wherein a dozen ears of sweet corn turn a humble bowl of chowder into a divine creation, the Hamburger Helper glove dukes it out with a scrappy bowl of slumgullion, and banishing the blues is as easy as lunch with Holly Golightly at the local farmers' market. A misfit Irish-but-not-Catholic girl from Cleveland's west side, O'Brien is funny and sophisticated, projecting triumph through the lens of the domicile without blinking when sorrow fills the screen. The right measure of quirk and earthy sex separate this book from the Erma Bombeck set, while O'Brien's dry Midwest humor ties it all together.