Carin Pratt is one of the remarkably knowledgeable crew at the Norwich Bookstore—and an ardent recommender of books. Before she landed in these parts, she spent 27 years at CBS News, including two decades as the executive producer of Face the Nation.

Whenever I feel the stress levels ratcheting up, I lurch towards the nearest food memoir.  I find them soothing -- no politics, for one thing.  As in all categories of books, the quality varies.  There are superb food memoirs, i.e. Blood Bones and Butter (Gabrielle Hamilton), or anything by Calvin Trillin, and there are some that are godawful, pretentious, humorless, and boring.

Actor Stanley Tucci's Taste: My Life Through Food, is one of the good ones.  Funny, well-written, informative and moving, Tucci describes his years of food (mostly Italian) infatuation.  His descriptions of certain dishes will have you wanting to eat his spaghetti carbonara (no cream, please) for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Which is, perhaps, unwise.

Recipes included.  Dig in.  You will feel soothed, at the very least.  (And, to tack on a second enthusiasm, his '96 restaurant movie, Big Night, is worth revisiting.  On Netflix.)

You'll find Taste: My Life Through Food at your local library or independent bookseller.

Previous Enthusiasms:

• Carin Pratt on Ash Davidson's Damnation Spring
• Peter Orner on Shirley Hazzard's The Evening of the Holiday
• Rena Mosteirin on Sybille Bedford's A Legacy
• Allie Levy on Chris Bohjalian's Hour of the Witch
• Jared Jenisch on Marc Hamer's Seed to Dust
• Kari Meutsch on All of Us Villains, by Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman