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Roz Chast

 Roz Chast just wrote a book about the bizarreness of her kitchen. Many of us choose not to talk about "the chipped mugs, the poison under the sink, the freon tubes" -- but Chast puts this stuff front and center in a memoir.


The book is not just about kitchen-focused revulsion, but also about the difficulty of "swimming upstream." Many people feel *fond* of their kitchens -- they use the room for a casual cocktail hour, or they publish essays about their joyful cooking memories. (In "Still Alice," the well-groomed Julianne Moore wrestles with her early-stages dementia while also preparing an elaborate Christmas meal in her immaculate kitchen.) ....If you are at odds with your kitchen, you are also at odds with American culture; you can't participate when people chat about food preparation as "the heart of the home."

I'm grateful for this weirdness -- I "feel seen" -- and I hope we will get more from Chast before she retires.

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