Life surprises us, good and bad. It’s what we do about it that counts.
— Dorie Greenspan, bestselling cookbook author and winner of five James Beard awards“Read this book because you love memoirs, love people and love learning how they tick. Read it because you love food and the food world. Read it because you love very good writing. Me? I read it voraciously for all of those reasons and also because Karen is such wonderful company — I loved spending time with her and was sad to say good-bye when I closed the book.”
— Danny Meyer, James Beard Award–winning restaurateur and New York Times best-selling author, temporary production preview“Karen Stabiner’s collection of heartfelt stories from a life well-nourished by food, restaurants, and hospitality reflect the myriad ways this industry nurtures and restores. Try One Bite is a moving reminder of why we do what we do.”
— Jamie Lee Curtis, Oscar-winning actor and producer, temporary production preview“Try One Bite delighted me from the opening betrayal to the beautiful ending, to thine own self be true. Throughout the rest of her journey, I felt an instant sisterhood of similarity and remembrance with Karen’s beautifully written and relatable life.”
— Dana Cowin, Founder, Progressive Hedonist, and former editor-in-chief, Food & Wine“Try One Bite is pure pleasure. From now on, I will think of Karen Stabiner when I sit at the end of a restaurant bar, lean into an impromptu conversation over a glass of wine, and remember that the community of food lovers is the most generous and affirming in the world.”
— Dorothy Kalins, author of The Kitchen Whisperers, cookbook author, and founding editor of Saveur“‘Restaurants and journalism, journalism and restaurants . . .’ Karen Stabiner wrestles with both worlds as verve and maturity lead her to find her hard-earned place in both.”
— Alice Waters, James Beard Award–winning chef and restaurateur and New York Times best-selling author“Restaurants have the potential to bring us back to the table—to gather over seasonal, nutritious food and to be together. In Try One Bite, Karen Stabiner reminds us that a meal can nourish not only the body but also our sense of connection and belonging.”
— Chris Bianco, James Beard Award–winning chef and restaurateur and author of Bianco“Restaurants are frames for the canvas of relationships, an opportunity to make a friend, feed your soul, and fill your belly, all wrapped up in one. In Try One Bite, Karen Stabiner puts her life back together one menu at a time, and how lucky we are to be seated right next to her.”
— Evan Kleiman, host of KCRW radio’s Good Food“Writer’s writer Karen Stabiner spent her childhood as her father’s wingman while he went on his rounds as a restaurant equipment salesman. Since then, her life has been filled with food-centered stories that tell us about ourselves. I was so happy to Try One Bite. You will be too.”
— Michael Solomonov, James Beard Award–winning chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author“How do you pick yourself up when life knocks you down? Karen Stabiner found community in restaurants, and her recipe for recovery rings true to me, equal parts comic, determined, and deeply felt.”
prologue
Pay attention, I told myself. This is a day you will remember for the rest of your life.
Everything made me happy. Autumn leaves arched in a canopy over my head, each one as distinct as the snowflakes soon to follow – but I was in the moment without even trying, so no thought of damp toes or numb fingers, not today. A slim breeze kept me not too hot but not too cold, and the sky was an uninterrupted blue. My side street was quiet, respectful of the magnitude of the moment, the noise of Manhattan an irrelevant rumble half a block away.
For five years, my two-income marriage had stumbled along one income shy, but as of the excellent phone call I'd just had, our long soul- and account-draining siege was officially over. My husband had re-invented himself. Let other men of his cohort embark on eighteen holes of retirement. David had statewide funding for an education start-up, lots of it, and we were going to be okay. Much more than okay. We could pay ourselves back the savings we'd spent to stay afloat, pay back the friends who'd invested, and have enough left over to be better off than we had been the last time he got laid off. People would invite us over for dinner to hear him tell the story of how he became a tech titan. Lower-case, to be sure, but so much for assumptions about what old guys could learn to do. He – we – had prevailed.
The bureaucracy of it would take a moment, but we could relax. It was all over but the paperwork.
I allowed myself a tiny pat on the back. It hadn't been easy to stay positive, separated from the action by three time zones, dependent on second-hand reports, forwarded emails and texts, and debriefs of phone calls, but we had no choice. The long wait had begun just as I moved from Los Angeles to New York to teach a one-semester journalism class at Columbia University, a lark that became a full-time job I could hardly refuse while David got his project off the ground, so here I still was. He had to stay in California to be available for meetings with investors and bureaucrats, but we'd been together for almost thirty years. We could survive a short geographical challenge, even if the finish line kept moving.
And so we had. I walked this block from the subway almost every day, but it had never looked like this before because until today I had to do it. Now I had a choice. I could stop teaching, go back home, and find something to write, or I could teach one class and spend the rest of the year in California. I loved teaching, but the imperative had begun to chafe. No more. As of today, I could be that bicoastal person who had the best of both worlds.
Our life was back on track.
All of what I just said is true. None of it is real.
Subscribe for book news, updates, and more.
And order your advance copy below.
Order
“I knew I’d made the right move as soon as I stepped inside. The seat at the end of the bar was open — and while some people might not want to be wedged between the wall and various pieces of bar equipment, I had always liked that spot, in part because it guaranteed that only one person, to my left, would ignore the older woman sitting on the next stool. I could dismiss one uninterested neighbor for having a limited worldview, but two would feel like a trend. The wall was always glad to see me, no matter how many birthdays I’d had.”Excerpt from Chapter 1 — The Woman at the End of the Bar
Subscribe for updates, articles, and commentary directly to your inbox.