About book Stuffed: Adventures Of A Restaurant Family (2002)
This loving and amusing compilation of character studies of Volk's immediate and extended family is knit together rather loosely but convincingly using food as its thread. Though Volk's parents were integral to her maternal grandfather's NYC restaurant, and much of their extended family was, at one time or another, employed by the various restaurants he founded within the city, the bulk of the book only marginally discuss the restaurant life. Rather, each chapter mentions some sort of food item, then uses that item as a jumping off point to describe one family member. Volk is highly adept at capturing foibles, mannerisms and telling details to paint a larger picture. She's funny and frank and maybe a little bit indiscreet too, but always with kindness and without intending to insult. Her portraits capture a certain type of highly intertwined, secular Jewish family that are particularly American and distinctly New York/Manhattan. An added bonus for this born and bred New Yorker, glimpses of a previous iteration of the city bathed in a nostalgic haze. Though Volk is older than me, and her New York was largely of another era, there are flashes of her New York that overlapped with mine--department stores that her family shopped in that my (much less comfortable) family could only dream of patronizing; certain city demarcations, neighborhoods, sites and smells--all that no longer exist but were part of both her and my childhood.
Trying to describe family members as they truly are, with all their quirks and foibles, while still respecting and loving them can be a tricky thing to balance but Patricia Volk manages to find the perfect mix of love and truth in her book about her Jewish family living in New York City. I adored this book! If I had the talent to write a family history this would be exactly the way I would want to do it. She skips from family member to family member, telling stories about their lives, all the while framing it in the innocence and love from her childhood eyes or in her bemused adult view of the world. The part where she talks about her sister made me tear up since I feel the same way about mine. The characters in her family are delightful, even when they are misbehaving, and I am grateful that she doesn't gloss over the bad. Perhaps I feel a greater connection to this book since my children go to school in the neighborhood she grew up in, and because I recognize her family members in many of the Jews I meet around the city? Perhaps I enjoyed the book because it reminds me of the things I remember about my family members? Whatever the case, this book I picked up on a whim from a lending library will be joining my collection of books I'm keeping on my shelf.
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I listened to the audio book. It was ok, not because of the subject matter, which was very interesting in the beginning. During my teen years I worked in our family coffee shop so I completely related to so much of what she said. The problem was that the book was completely disjointed and there was no real linear progression. She has so many aunts and uncles that she kept describing both at young and old ages and I didn't know who was who and how old they were and, most importantly, how they fit into the story. The last 25% of the book was devoted to her father's cancer and death. Very, very depressing. I probably wouldn't recommend despite the funny start.
—Sarah
#60 - 2010.Picked this up at random at Half Price Books. I have a vague memory of having read it before but that may be inaccurate. You'd think from the name that this would be chock-full of life at a restaurant, whether from a childhood standpoint or adult looking back. Not so. Volk takes us into the lives of her quirky, fascinating relatives and gives us a look back at when individuality was to be expected of everyone. The restaurant was somewhat incidental and was presented as just another quirk of a few people's personalities but I didn't mind that at all.Clearly Volk loves her family and there are many moments worth reading about here: funny, wistful, and sometimes cringe-worthy. What comes through more than anything is Volk's love and appreciation for all these people and I learned to like them very much indeed. My favorite was the aunt who spent 7 hours as a hostage at gunpoint and wound up being turned loose, having given the young man some very good advice about how to spend his time in prison and a decent meal.
—Julie Davis
Patricia Volk’s delicious memoir lets us into her big, crazy, loving, cheerful, infuriating and wonderful family, where you’re never just hungry–your starving to death, and you’re never just full–you’re stuffed. Volk’s family fed New York City for one hundred years, from 1888 when her great-grandfather introduced pastrami to America until 1988, when her father closed his garment center restaurant. All along, food was pretty much at the center of their lives. But as seductively as Volk evokes the food, Stuffed is at heart a paean to her quirky, vibrant relatives: her grandmother with the “best legs in Atlantic City”; her grandfather, who invented the wrecking ball; her larger-than-life father, who sculpted snow thrones when other dads were struggling with snowmen. Writing with great freshness and humor, Patricia Volk will leave you hungering to sit down to dinner with her robust family–both for the spectacle and for the food.
—Melanie
