Small Fires

A BRACINGLY ORIGINAL, BOUNDARY BREAKING EXPLORATION OF COOKING AND THE KITCHEN, FROM A RISING STAR IN FOOD WRITING 'A manifesto for reclaiming cooking as an intellectual... a brave, honest book' SUNDAY TIMES 'An intense thought-provoking enquiry into the very nature of cooking, which stayed with me long after I finished reading it' NIGELLA LAWSON 'Rich in pleasure and revelation' OBSERVER Small Fires reinvents cooking - that simple act of rolling up our sleeves, wielding a knife, splattering red hot sauce on our books - as a way of experiencing ourselves and the world. Cooking is thinking: about the liberating constraint of tying apron strings; the meaning of appetite and bodily pleasure; the wild subversiveness of the recipe; the power of small fires burning everywhere. ________________ FURTHER PRAISE FOR SMALL FIRES 'Brave enough to hurt feelings, delicious enough for no one to care' New York Times 'Smart, thoughtful, creative' Ruby Tandoh 'Destined to become essential reading... Bold, beautiful, daring' Rachel Roddy 'Possesses an intellectual fleet footedness and exuberance akin to the writing of Deborah Levy or Rebecca Solnit' I NEWS 'I loved this genre-busting book. Shows that cooking can be a wild kind of magic' Bee Wilson 'Liberating... a new way to write about food' Jonathan Nunn Vittles 'Revolutionary... wakes up the reader's senses' Times Literary Supplement At once relatable and mind-expanding' Vogue US 'One of the most original food books I've ever read, at once intelligent and sensuous, witty, provoking and truly delicious' Olivia Laing 'Tender, electric, intimately transformative' Nina Mingya Powles

Rebecca May Johnson has published essays, reviews and nonfiction with Granta, Times Literary Supplement and Daunt Books Publishing, among others, and is an editor at the trailblazing food publication Vittles. Small Fires is her first book.