“[A] juicy memoir about growing up, becoming a chef, and working as New York’s most unconventional wedding caterer.” —BUST magazine When their high-school-aged, punk, runaway daughter is found hosting a Jersey Shore hotel party, Rossi’s parents feel they have no other choice: they ship her off to live with a Chasidic rabbi in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Within the confines of this restrictive culture, Rossi’s big city dreams take root. Once she makes her way to Manhattan, Rossi’s passion for cooking, which first began as a revolt against the microwave, becomes her life mission. The Raging Skillet is one woman’s story of cooking her way through some of the most unlikely kitchens in New York City—at a “beach” in Tribeca, an East Village supper club, and a makeshift grill at Ground Zero in the days immediately following 9/11. Forever writing her own rules, Rossi ends up becoming the owner of one of the most sought-after catering companies in the city. This heartfelt, gritty, and hilarious memoir shows us how the creativity of the kitchen allows us to give a nod to where we come from, while simultaneously expressing everything that we are. This “moving, witty memoir” (Nigella Lawson) includes unpretentious recipes for real people everywhere. “A humorous and witty chronicle of a woman’s pulling-herself-up-by-her-bootstraps rise through the culinary ranks.” —Kirkus Reviews

Matt Lee and Ted Lee take on the competitive, wild world of high-end catering, exposing the secrets of a food business few home cooks or restaurant chefs ever experience. Hotbox reveals the real-life drama behind cavernous event spaces and soaring white tents, where cooking conditions have more in common with a mobile army hospital than a restaurant. Known for their modern take on Southern cooking, the Lee brothers steeped themselves in the catering business for four years, learning the culture from the inside-out. It’s a realm where you find eccentric characters, working in extreme conditions, who must produce magical events and instantly adapt when, for instance, the host’s toast runs a half-hour too long, a hail storm erupts, or a rolling rack of hundreds of ice cream desserts goes wheels-up. Whether they’re dashing through black-tie fundraisers, celebrity-spotting at a Hamptons cookout, or following a silverware crew at 3:00 a.m. in a warehouse in New Jersey, the Lee brothers guide you on a romp from the inner circle—the elite team of chefs using little more than their wits and Sterno to turn out lamb shanks for eight hundred—to the outer reaches of the industries that facilitate the most dazzling galas. You’ll never attend a party—or entertain on your own—in the same way after reading this book.

An “enthralling” memoir of a woman who risked her life to help a people under siege and a country caught between freedom and oppression (Publishers Weekly—starred review). In 1990, sixty-five-year-old activist and grandmother Barbara Bick traveled with a women’s delegation to Afghanistan for what she thought would be her last great adventure. Instead, Bick forged deep friendships with her Afghan hosts—only to watch in horror as the Taliban took over most of the country and instituted fiercely anti-woman policies. Eleven years later, at age 76, Bick returned to Afghanistan, travelling to the region controlled by the Northern Alliance, an anti-Taliban militia. In early September 2001, Bick walked out of a compound where militia leader Ahmad Shah Massoud was also staying. Minutes later, Taliban infiltrators assassinated Massoud—a prelude to the al Qaeda attacks on the United States. As the US government became deeply involved in Afghanistan, Bick decided to return once again to see how women were faring under the new government. In 2004, she was one of the few Western women able to bring years of experience to understanding the country’s trauma. Walking the Precipice gives new insight into the people, politics, and culture of a country that is on everyone’s radar—for its beauty, and for its tragic place history.

Expanding the social justice discourse surrounding "reproductive rights" to include issues of environmental justice, incarceration, poverty, disability, and more, this crucial anthology explores the practical applications for activist thought migrating from the community into the academy. Radical Reproductive Justice assembles two decades’ of work initiated by SisterSong Women of Color Health Collective, creators of the human rights-based “reproductive justice” framework to move beyond polarized pro-choice/pro-life debates. Rooted in Black feminism and built on intersecting identities, this revolutionary framework asserts a woman's right to have children, to not have children, and to parent and provide for the children they have. "The book is as revolutionary and revelatory as it is vast." —Rewire

A delectable memoir about the transformative power of food, Blue Plate Special is a deeply personal narrative in which food becomes the vehicle for exploring a life. Here, novelist Kate Christensen tells her own story, from her unorthodox childhood in 1960s Berkeley as the daughter of a legal activist who ruled the house with his fists to her extraordinary success as a PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author. Hungry not just for food, but for love and a sense of belonging, Christensen writes honestly about her struggle to find the contentment she has always yearned for. A beautifully written account of a knockabout life, full of sorrows, pleasures—and, of course, food—Blue Plate Special is a delicious reading experience.

Marriages, affairs, suicides, duplicitous relations, second chances, murder, madness, and true love - Rajmahal is a beautifully crafted tale of families brought together in an unusual Bengali house over a century of turbulent changes. Within the walls of this stately home, a melting pot of tenants, alive and dead, new generations struggle to come to grips with the social, economic, and intellectual forces working in India as it moves from the British Raj to independence. Their intertwined fortunes and personal battles become a mirror of the struggle for possession of the country's future.

A heartfelt coming-of-age memoir about taking the unbeaten path, owning a home, and holding it all—including yourself—together. Detouring from the traditional timeline of marriage-kids-house, twenty-six-year-old Vikki Warner skips straight to homeownership. She buys a downtrodden three-story house in Providence, Rhode Island, and suddenly finds herself responsible for a rotating cast of colorful tenants. Adulthood comes with unforeseen challenges: backed-up sewage, gentrification, global economic downturn. A candid portrait of how sharing space profoundly reshapes our lives, and forces us to grow into ourselves. “Forget the marriage plot; 26-year-old Warner is after a plot of land…. [An] ebullient memoir.”—O, The Oprah Magazine “Refreshingly original reading.”—Kirkus Reviews “A thoughtful meditation on communal living and urban identity…. Quirky and fun.”—The Providence Monthly “Wry, smart, personal, and pretty damn punk rock.”—Kate Schatz, author of Rad Women Worldwide “Cheers to Vikki Warner, whose tenacious and inspiring coming-of-age story gives voice to a new generation of independent women and grown-ass boss ladies.”—Margot Kahn, coeditor of This is the Place “Full of color, life, and that special type of real, earned wisdom that only comes with taking risks and trusting completely in your own young self.”—Kate Bolick, author of Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own “An ode to the messiness of life, Tenemental is the incredibly raw, touching, and laugh-out-loud story of a woman figuring out how to get by in the world.”—Emma Ramadan, co-owner of Riffraff Bookstore