Stir cover

Stir

by Jessica Fechtor

" M.F.K. Fisher meets Brain on Fire in this exquisite memoir of a 28-year-old food blogger who cooks her way back to health after a near-fatal aneurysm Jessica Fechtor was on top of the world: a Harvard graduate student, happily married, and thinking about starting a family. Then, while attending an academic conference, she went for a run and an aneurysm burst in her brain. Multiple surgeries left her skull startlingly deformed. She lost her sense of smell, the sight in her left eye, and her confidence about who she was and what mattered. Jessica's journey to recovery began in the kitchen as soon as she was strong enough to stand at the stovetop and stir. There, she learned about the restorative powers of kneading, salting, and sifting, that food had something to tell her, and that it felt good to listen. For readers of Molly Wizenberg, Tamar Adler, Laurie Colwin, and Ruth Reichl, as well as Oliver Sacks and Jill Bolte Taylor, Stir is a memoir (with recipes) of what it means to fix what's broken and live with what can't be fixed, to nourish and be nourished, to remember what it is to be hungry, honor that hunger, and learn how to feed it"-- "After suffering a brain aneurysm and a life-threatening infection, Jessica Fechtor set about cooking and baking to pull herself back together again, fixing what was broken, and living with what couldn't be fixed"--

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?