Leah Eskin with Mary Zajac: LIKE WAFERS IN HONEY

Celebrating Leah Eskin’s debut novel, Like Wafers in Honey, on the patio at The Ivy Bookshop! Owner of Crumble Handmade Pastry, which graced the Baltimore food scene for many years, Eskin now lives in Chicago but returns to her beloved Baltimore to celebrate her exciting first novel. We love this bit from the blurb: the book “combines the historical sweep and emotional power of The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer and the resonant use of food and recipes of Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel.” What’s not to love?! Depicting an Italian-Jewish way of life, one story line follows Stella, searching for safety in Mussolini’s Italy, and another follows Edda, a housewife in 1960s Westchester trying to make sense of a new culture, as well as the “spaghetti and meatballs” food that passes for Italian cuisine. In between these two remarkable stories are more than forty recipes (updated for today’s cooks), all inspired by the life and example of Edda Servi Machlin, author of The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews. Mary Zajac will join Eskin for this exciting conversation. We’re looking forward to celebrating this project, and hope to see you there! Order LIKE WAFERS IN HONEY here! RSVP here! Leah Eskin writes about food and other pressing matters. For nearly 20 years her award-winning column “Home on the Range” ran in the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers. Eskin writes the dessert column for Midwest Living magazine and is the owner of Crumble Handmade Pastry. She lives in Chicago with her husband and their chocolate Lab, Milo. You can reach her at leaheskin.com. Mary Zajac is an award-winning feature writer whose work has appeared nationally in publications like The New York Times and Saveur, and locally in the Urbanite, the City Paper, and Baltimore Style, where she wrote two-long running columns: “Food for Thought,” reflections on Baltimore food traditions, and “Past Perfect,” essay tributes to Baltimore buildings that no longer exist. From 2008-2022, she co-hosted “Word on Wine” with Jonathan Palevsky on 91.5 FM WBJC. She is the Research and Communications Officer for Baltimore Heritage, where she helps create the popular Five Minute Histories videos. Today, her five (okay, six) favorite foods are fried oysters, French fries, pierogis, tarte tatin, pistachio ice cream, and anything with rhubarb.