0:11

You're listening to all of A Backlist, a weekly show

0:13

about books that are not new. I'm your host,

0:15

Vanessa Diaz. This is episode 407.5, airing on March 31st, end of the

0:18

month. Once

0:22

again, that happened. Today, I'm

0:24

going to tell you about

0:24

some books that you're probably going to want to have

0:26

snacks that they're ready for because they do combine

0:29

food with one of my favorite topics, magic.

0:33

No books and magic. I'm reading, or talking

0:35

about these books I should say, because I am rereading

0:37

a kind

0:38

of seminal work of magical

0:40

realism that also involves food. It is

0:42

one of my favorite books of all time. That

0:44

book is Como a la Para Chocolate, the

0:46

English title of which is Like Water for Chocolate by

0:48

Laura Esquivel.

0:49

I'm reading that as

0:51

prep for a project that I've been working on kind of behind the

0:53

scenes. our premium newsletter, The Deep

0:56

Dive. We've probably heard about it because we've been

0:58

talking about it across several different platforms. I'll

1:00

put a link in the show notes for you to learn more about

1:02

that if you'd like, but it is a really fun project in which

1:05

we are going to get to hear from the folks

1:07

at Book Riot, bookish experts about topics

1:09

that are

1:09

either really near and dear to us, that we're just really

1:12

passionate or interested in. We're going

1:14

to get to stretch our legs here and just

1:16

go on a

1:16

little bit about some topics in a much deeper

1:18

way than we have traditionally been able to.

1:21

It's going to be a lot of fun. But before I rant

1:23

and rave about this book and why I love

1:25

it so much, let's go ahead and hear from our sponsor.

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Again, that's red or dead.

2:00

So like I was, like I was

2:02

full Spanglish in action here. Como a la para

2:04

chocolate, like water for chocolate is one of my favorite

2:06

books. It is about

2:08

a woman named Tita whose

2:11

lot in life has been made very clear to her since

2:13

she was a child. And that is that as the youngest of

2:15

several daughters, I think three, three or four daughters, I'm

2:18

misremembering this part. But anyway, she's the youngest for sure. And

2:20

so her lot in life is going to be to take care of her mother.

2:22

She's not allowed to fall in love, have kids, get

2:24

married, no side pieces, nothing. Like this

2:27

is what she is supposed to do.

2:27

mother Mamayelena is

2:30

a very overbearing character. She

2:32

kind of rules her household with an iron fist and

2:35

there's complexities to her character for sure

2:37

so I don't want to make light of those,

2:40

but she makes it very clear at every

2:42

point that like Tita should not aspire

2:44

to do anything but be the person who

2:47

helps her run this household and take care of her for the rest of her

2:49

life. So of course, Tita falls in love with

2:51

a man named Pedro who comes and asks

2:53

for her hand because he's equally smitten with her. And

2:55

when he asks Mamayelena, of course, she's like, yeah,

2:57

no, shuts that ish down, but quick, but

3:00

says, Hey, I have this other daughter, I suggest you marry

3:02

her instead. And Pedro agrees,

3:04

because in his mind, as he puts

3:07

it, is at least means that

3:08

he'll get to be in close proximity to Dita.

3:10

And as you can imagine, this plan has

3:13

flaws. But the part that

3:15

relates to the books and about

3:17

magic and food

3:18

is that Dita is the family cook. She's a

3:20

wonderful cook. This book is actually told as a series

3:23

of recipe installments, like over months, which

3:25

is is one of my favorite elements of the structure. But

3:27

she finds very quickly that her

3:30

emotions, especially like the really heightened ones,

3:33

make it into the food

3:35

that she prepares and are then felt

3:38

by those who consume it. And that

3:40

gets real interesting when the emotion

3:42

that you were feeling at the time was

3:45

a really intense anger

3:46

or lust. So it's

3:48

such a beautiful book. I love it so much in

3:51

so many ways. It's actually a very quick read. It's a small little

3:53

book, but it just really packs a punch and had

3:55

me chasing that like, okay, I want to read more

3:57

about books that have food especially

4:00

food that's tied to like a specific culture

4:02

that's really important. And

4:04

then that bit of either you know magic or magical

4:06

realism. And that's definitely the theme of

4:08

the two books I'm going to talk to you about next.

4:10

That first one is Love Sugar

4:12

Magic by Anna Meriano. It is illustrated

4:15

by Miré Lortega. And that's actually now

4:17

I think about the name of the series. The book itself,

4:19

the first one anyway is called A Dash of Trouble.

4:21

It is about a young girl.

4:23

She is not quite a teenager,

4:26

not quite a child. I want to say she's in that like, you

4:28

know, tween preteen stage. Her

4:30

name is Llorora goes by Leo and her family

4:32

owns this beloved bakery in their community

4:35

in Texas. That bakery whips up all

4:37

kinds of wonderful you know cakes, cookies, concoctions,

4:39

etc. But their big event that's really

4:41

important to them and they look forward to and prepare for

4:43

every year is the annual Dia

4:45

de los Muertos festival. So yes, all

4:48

my bills are ringing. Love this so much.

4:51

And Leo is in the tough spot because she

4:53

again as a tween is very much like stop treating I mean,

4:55

like a baby, I'm, you know, I was

4:57

gonna say a big girl now, although that sounds kind of infantilizing,

5:00

but she really wants to have, you know, play

5:02

a bigger role in helping her family

5:04

prepare for this festival. But this year,

5:06

like every other year before that, they're like, not

5:08

quite yet, you're too young. And of course, that's not

5:10

the answer that Leo is looking for. So

5:12

one day she decides to skip school, she

5:15

sneaks out, sneaks into the bakery

5:17

where the preparations, you know, have begun, and she discovers

5:19

that the women in her family have been hiding a little

5:21

secret. And that secret is that they

5:23

are buchas. They are witches

5:25

of Mexican descent, and a little

5:28

bit of their magic gets put into everything

5:30

that they bake. Of course, she wants

5:33

in on this, and she's like, okay, she has so many questions.

5:35

Do I have these powers too? When do I get these powers? When

5:37

do I get to use these powers? That sort of thing.

5:39

She decides she's going to do a little experiment

5:42

that, how harmful could this be? Because

5:44

she has a bestie at school who's going through

5:46

a thing. She's like, I'm going to test

5:49

this out, try my hands at a little spell,

5:51

and make things right for

5:52

her. does not go according to plan. So

5:55

you get to watch as Leo tries to,

5:57

you know, undo the mess that she's made but

5:59

also So come to terms with

6:02

everything that she's now learned about her family.

6:04

She doesn't want to let them know about the things

6:06

that she's done, even though that would probably be the easier

6:09

route to go. But it's

6:11

just a whole thing of watching somebody,

6:13

again,

6:14

come to terms with who

6:16

they are, trying to assert themselves

6:18

and their individuality and just

6:21

figure out life at that kind of complicated

6:24

age. And then the story is just bursting

6:27

with magic and, oh,

6:29

the name of the bakery is on yasucar, which is

6:31

not important, but I just love

6:32

it. It means love and sugar. I love that we

6:35

get to see this magic, this

6:37

food, but that is so specifically tied

6:39

to this Mexican tradition of making pandulce,

6:42

which is a pastry. It's a type

6:44

of pastry or category, I guess, because

6:46

it really embodies this whole world of pastries

6:48

that all fall under this headline of Mexican

6:51

pandulce, sweet bread. You often eat

6:53

it with breakfast, you dip it in coffee

6:56

and Mexican hot chocolate and it's just so nice

6:58

to see those things on a page. I feel like we

7:00

could start a drinking game at this point about like,

7:02

take a sip of something every time Vanessa says

7:05

she wishes she could give a book to her child self

7:07

and like here I am again, take that sip because

7:09

it's just, oh, it would have been so nice to

7:11

see something like that to see Pan dulce,

7:14

to see my Mexican

7:14

culture reflected on the page with that little

7:16

touch of brujeria. It's just so, so sweet.

7:19

I haven't read the other two books in the series

7:21

and I'm newly very excited to go ahead and

7:23

do that might do so on the plane that I

7:25

am getting on this afternoon. So if you want

7:27

a bit of a warm hug of a read, you had

7:29

no a young reader in your

7:30

life, this would be perfect for all of that. This

7:33

again, that is the love sugar magic series,

7:35

the first of which is a dash of trouble

7:38

by Anna Mariano illustrated by Mirele Ortega.

7:40

The second book is another

7:43

one of my recent favorites. I it came out

7:45

I think in 20. I think the paperback

7:47

at least this might actually be a be a paperback original, but if

7:50

so, it came out in 2019 or so.

7:52

And that is Natalie Tan's book of luck

7:54

and fortune by Roselle Lim. Another

7:57

as you know, the theme of this book, a book that

7:59

combined. magic and flube it in a slightly different

8:01

way. So our main character, Natalie

8:03

Tan, comes home when she finds

8:06

out that her mother has, I believe,

8:08

passed away. It's been obviously a few years since I read

8:10

this. But the women had

8:13

not spoken. So yes, she did pass away. I just remember that,

8:15

you know, you're come on this journey with me. She

8:18

comes back because her mother has passed. And

8:20

it is bittersweet because, well, of

8:23

course, it's just bitter for most of the reasons

8:25

because she hasn't had a relationship with her mother

8:27

for several years. They stopped speaking,

8:31

because her mother did not support

8:33

her chosen career to go on and be

8:35

a chef. And when she comes back

8:37

to the neighborhood she grew up in, which is San Francisco's

8:40

Chinatown, she is pretty shocked to discover

8:42

how much it's

8:43

changed. Namely that, you

8:45

know, lots of local kind of small businesses

8:47

have failed and for people have

8:49

been forced to move out of the communities that you know,

8:52

they've been in for their whole lives. And

8:54

she's also gets another little surprise upon returning.

8:56

And that is that she inherited her

8:58

grandmother's restaurant, which I believe

9:00

had been shuttered for like a little bit. So

9:03

then a little bit of magic seeps in here.

9:05

The neighborhood, like psychic

9:07

or seer, reads the

9:10

restaurant's fortune in like tea leaves

9:13

and essentially tells Natalie, okay, the

9:15

way you're going to,

9:17

you know, fix some of the problems that

9:19

have just been heaped on your plate is

9:21

to cook these three, three,

9:23

four, I think three specific dishes

9:26

from her grandmother's

9:27

like cookbook recipe

9:30

collection, etc. And that is going

9:33

to help her struggling neighbors

9:35

and that is what she has to

9:37

do in order for like the restaurant that

9:40

she's

9:40

now inherited to be a success.

9:42

And Natalie is not particularly

9:45

keen on this plan because she looks at all those

9:47

neighbors with not such a generous

9:50

eye. She's like they left

9:52

me alone when I really needed them. And

9:55

I

9:55

was, you know, my law in life at that time

9:57

was to take care of my mom when I was growing

9:59

up. I wasn't even you know, an adult yet. So like, why

10:02

do I want to help these people? But you know, again,

10:04

this neighborhood seers like, well, that's what you're gonna have to do. So

10:07

figure it out. So she,

10:09

you know, essentially

10:10

goes on this mission with this, you know,

10:12

help of some friends, maybe a little romantic

10:14

side plot as well, and, you know, starts to

10:16

realize that maybe her preconceptions

10:19

or her her perception, not just preconceptions

10:21

of these people is maybe not 100%

10:24

accurate. And there may be more there than meets the

10:26

eye.

10:27

This book for sure is going to make

10:29

you very, very hungry. The recipes

10:32

are many and just delicious.

10:35

I'm so thankful that I live in a place

10:37

where I have decent access to some pretty

10:40

good Asian American food or Asian food,

10:42

I should say, because wow, just

10:44

the salivation is very real.

10:46

It's such a touching story about having to

10:49

look back on your relationship with

10:51

a person in your life that you had

10:53

a complicated dynamic

10:54

with. And really, a thing

10:56

that I'm starting to think about a lot as an adult

10:59

now is understanding my elders

11:01

in a much different way. Now that I too am,

11:03

you know, a full blown adult,

11:05

people aren't perfect. And you know, obviously, you're

11:07

completely entitled to feel emotions

11:09

when those relationships don't go the

11:12

way that you want them to. But sometimes

11:14

we learn about

11:14

people later in a way that at least

11:17

allows us to give people some grace. And

11:19

that is really the message of this book.

11:21

It's so touching, so wonderful. And again, like, just

11:23

just have the food have the have the food ready

11:26

prep it ahead of time order some takeout do

11:28

something it is so delectable

11:30

and like lush in its descriptions of the

11:32

food which yeah I really enjoyed. So

11:34

again that is Natalie Tan's book of luck

11:37

and fortune by Roselle Lim. So

11:40

those are the books I wanted to tell you about today

11:42

we are so lucky that there are so many

11:44

books out nowadays that combine magic

11:47

and food so there is you know plenty more

11:49

to go around I originally had a much larger list

11:51

and decided to keep it to two because we all know how I

11:53

like to go on and on about

11:54

these sorts of things, but I hope that you'll

11:56

pick them up and discover a little bit. Definitely go back

11:59

and read. of chocolat there's also

12:01

an adaptation that you can watch that I do remember

12:03

enjoying when I saw it years ago. There's just

12:05

so much escapism to be

12:07

had and also, you know, you may just, you know, sharpen

12:10

up your little chef and skills too, because all of these

12:12

things definitely made me want to cook up a storm.

12:15

Thank you so much for listening and thank you so

12:17

much to today's sponsors. Thank you almost

12:20

most of all to our audio editor gentsink

12:22

who always does such a phenomenal job of

12:24

making us sound great. For more recs

12:27

or general bookishness, make sure to check out bookriot.com.

12:30

And don't forget to check out all of our podcast

12:32

offerings at bookriot.com slash listen,

12:35

or you can of course just search book riot on your podcast

12:37

player of choice.

12:38

You can find a list of all the books I mentioned today

12:41

plus a little bit of extra bit about

12:43

the deep dive newsletter at

12:45

our show notes. You can do that by visiting book riot.com

12:47

slash all the books. And of course,

12:50

if you're a fan of all the books and all the backlist and

12:52

you want to show us a little love, please consider leaving

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rate podcasts. We really appreciate those

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reviews because they help other book lovers like you

13:02

to find our shows. And lastly, if you

13:04

want to find me, I'm mostly on Instagram these

13:06

days at Buenos di S.S.D. where

13:08

I generally post pictures and or stories

13:11

of either

13:12

my niece and nephew, occasionally books, occasionally

13:14

food, because again, we've established food and

13:16

books is where it's at. Thank you again

13:18

for listening and until next time, happy reading

13:21

and eating!