“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. In her moving, real-talk memoir, the James Beard Award–winning writer describes beautifully the current, sometimes painful moment that Southern writers, editors, and chefs-perhaps especially women-have found themselves in as the world at large seems enamored by Southern food.” - Garden & Gun, Favorite Books for Southerners in 2020 “The pastry chef Lisa Donovan knows the insides of some of the South’s top restaurant kitchens even better than people think they want to know them. 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. But Donovan's salvations were food, self-reliance, and the network of women in food who stood by her. She survived abuse and assault as a young mother. Donovan's love language is hospitality, and she wants to welcome everyone to the table of good food and fairness.ĭonovan 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. Her family's matriarchs found strength and passion through food, and they inspired Donovan's accomplished career.

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. 'I do,' Kennedy said, 'Stop letting men tell your story.' When Kennedy asked why she had not heard of her, Donovan said she did not know. At one of her career peaks, she made the perfect dessert at a celebration for food-world goddess Diana Kennedy. 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. 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. '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 Named a Favorite Book for Southerners in 2020 by Garden & Gun

Our lady of perpetual hunger book