BETWEEN TWO FIRES: Intimate Writings on Life, Love, Food & Flavor
Laura Esquivel
Crown
Memoir
ISBN: 0609608479

In BETWEEN TWO FIRES, Laura Esquivel, the author of LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE, has collected a number of her shorter writings, including stories, articles, and speeches. The role of food in relationships, both familial and romantic, is at the heart of BETWEEN TWO FIRES, but Esquivel's book also has a decidedly political stance, as many of the pieces deal with her belief in the need for a "New Man."

These two important themes are revealed in the book's first piece, "At the Hearth," a speech Esquivel delivered at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City in January of 1993 after being named "Woman of the Year" for 1992. Esquivel's belief that the preparation of food is a spiritual act is clear from the very beginning:

"I spent the first years of my life beside the hearth in my mother's and grandmother's kitchens, seeing how these wise women, upon entering those sacred places, became priestesses, great alchemists who dealt with water, air, fire, earth --- the four basic elements that comprise the entire universe."

The traditional methods for preparing food are a cultural touchstone for Esquivel, and she believes they are essential for the creation of the "New Man" she anxiously awaits:

"It is there, around the hearth, where the New Man will appear, as the fruit of a common effort. He will give equal value to production and reproduction, to reason and emotion, the intimate and the public, to the material and the spiritual."

Much of BETWEEN TWO FIRES is a recapitulation of these two themes, and the repetition threatens to derail the book, despite its overall brevity. But even the reader unconvinced by Esquivel's spiritual and political messages can find items of interest in the book, including a number of recipes (somewhat torturously worked into short stories) that sound quite tasty, and the stylized and dreamlike illustrations that appear in the borders of every page.

   --- Reviewed by Rob Cline

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