Hunger Like a Thirst

This is a memoir and a manual of sorts. Besha Rodell is a restaurant critic, columnist and freelance reporter based in Melbourne. She is a James Beard Award winner and served as restaurant critic for LA Weekly for years. Her work now appears frequently in The New York Times and The Age, and if I knew her, we would be particularly good friends. We would meet at a swanky, dimly lit bar that serves delicious dishes with matched wines and talk about motherhood, misogyny and food – my top three favourite topics after literature – for hours. Given that I do not know her, reading her excellent and funny stories is the next best thing.

Like Rodell, I have always loved knowing the origins of restaurants. Unlike me, she started her love affair with all things fancy and fine at Melbourne’s own Stephanie’s when she was eight years old. It was there that she fell utterly in love with the luxury of perfect service and tastes. As her family situation was not typical, her story moves from Melbourne and through various American states and finally back to Australia. Along the way, she had a dream job, lost it, found another, and held on to her voice, which is clear and full of intelligent, iconic appraisals –most importantly, of herself. Rodell is one of the very few female (and until recently, anonymous) restaurant critics working in the world today.

This book is a history lesson on how, over the last 25 years, food became a source of entertainment. Readers of Anthony Bourdain, or Jay Rayner, will delight in it. Women juggling families with careers will relate. Anyone chasing a dream job will be inspired by Rodell’s story of commitment and gumption. And for those who dream of food, this writing will make you laugh and hungry for more.