Bonny Reichert, 2022 Book Award Winner

Winners

Oct. 19

Bonny Reichert is a National Magazine Award-winning journalist. She began her career as an editor at Today’s Parent, Canadian’s largest parenting magazine, moving up in seniority before switching to Chatelaine, a women’s magazine with a then-readership of 3.1 million. Turning 40 and craving a change, she packed up her knives and enrolled in full time chef school. Two years later, she returned to journalism and communications with a new focus.

Reichert was born in Edmonton, the youngest of four daughters. As the child of a Holocaust survivor, she learned a deep respect and concern for social justice from a young age. She has volunteered in community groups and charities throughout her life, with a particular interest in organizations that help to feed hungry people.

Bonny Reichert's winning submission was from her book, entitled How to Share an Egg: A True Story of Hunger, Love and Plenty, to be published by Appetite / Penguin Random House (Can) and Ballantine / Penguin Random House (US).

“When you’re raised by someone who once survived on potato peels and coffee grounds,you develop a pretty healthy respect for food.” So writes the chef and journalist as she digs for the roots of her food obsession: from her father’s near-starvation in Auschwitz-Birkenau, to her colorful restaurant-business childhood, to her flavor-soaked search to find her own voice as a writer, chef, daughter and mother.

Voraciously readable, How to Share an Egg explores a whole life built upon one simple principle, internalized before age five: food equals life. Reichert writes: "Food stories run through our bloodlines like rivers through forests, always moving forward, flowing toward the future, curving and changing. The story handed down to me was one of survival and strength, and as I work it through my own hands, it widening to encompass themes of creativity and imagination. And joy. And love. Ultimately, it a celebration of being alive."

Twitter - @bonnyreichert
Pinterest - @marmaladejar
Penguin Random House - penguinrandomhouse.com

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