A Year Right Here: Adventures with Food and Family in the Great Nearby

by Jess Thomson, Hannah Viano (Illustrator)

Overview

Armed with “The Here List” and a Type-A personality, Seattle-based writer and cookbook author Jess Thomson sets out to spend a year exploring the food of the Pacific Northwest with her family. Planning to revel in the culinary riches of the region and hoping to break her son, Graham, of his childhood pickiness, the adventures into the great nearby include building a backyard chicken coop, truffle hunting in Oregon, and razor clamming on the Washington coast. Her plans to spend “a year right here” are complicated by efforts to help Graham overcome some of the mobility limitations of cerebral palsy, and thwarted further by her own limitations that come to the fore when she attempts the “Gourmet Century,” a hilly one-hundred-kilometer bike ride with gourmet food stops along the way.

With touching, funny, sometimes devastating stories that we all can relate to, Jess pulls the reader in as she abandons “The Here List” and learns that letting go can be just as important as holding on.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780295741550
Publisher:	University of Washington Press
Publication date:	04/03/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	775 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jess Thomson is a freelance writer and the author of Dishing Up Washington, Pike Place Market Recipes, and Top Pot Hand-Forged Doughnuts; and coauthor of A Boat, a Whale, and a Walrus.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Staying Put

1. January

-The House That Jack Built

-The Rarest Breed

2. February

-Digging Deep

3. March

-You’ve Got to Be Kidding

4. April

-Spoon-Fed

5. May

-On Parking-Lot Barbecue

6. June

-The Other Western Wine Country

7. July

-The Gourmet Century

8. August

-The Manhattan Project

-Trial by Fire

-The Opposite of Ilwaco

9. September

10. October

-What Would Jesus Brew?

11. November

-Chronicles of a Coffee Lover

-Slow Dog Noodle

12. December

-To Market, to Market



13. January, Again

-Found in Translation

Epilogue: A Year Right Here

Index of Recipes

What People are Saying About This

Claire Dederer

"A Year Right Here weaves together sharp observation, emotional candor, and strong characterization. In telling the story of her year at home, Jess Thomson illuminates our corner of the world."

Cheryl Sternman Rule

"Expertly weaving the trials and travails of daily life—one filled with alternating bouts of triumph and struggle—with her yearlong exploration of the Pacific Northwest’s edible gems, Thomson invites the reader into her imperfect, thoroughly genuine world. Her writing is never indulgent, never treacly, always honest. She makes the quotidian both remarkable and universal, garnishing each beautifully-crafted phrase with a dose of unsentimental realism."

From the Publisher

"Jess is a smart, funny, straight-shooting writer with a great sense for food, and her A Year Right Here is no exception."—Molly Wizenberg, author of A Homemade Life and Delancey

"A Year Right Here weaves together sharp observation, emotional candor, and strong characterization. In telling the story of her year at home, Jess Thomson illuminates our corner of the world."—Claire Dederer, author of Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses

"A book about parenting, food, and letting go, Jess Thomson's writing is full of emotion, wit and truth. This book strikes me to the core as I see myself reflected in the incongruence and beauty of daily life and our obsession with food and cooking."—Aran Goyoaga, author of Small Plates & Sweet Treats: My Family's Journey to Gluten-Free Cooking and creator of Cannelle et Vanille

"Expertly weaving the trials and travails of daily life—one filled with alternating bouts of triumph and struggle—with her yearlong exploration of the Pacific Northwest's edible gems, Thomson invites the reader into her imperfect, thoroughly genuine world. Her writing is never indulgent, never treacly, always honest. She makes the quotidian both remarkable and universal, garnishing each beautifully-crafted phrase with a dose of unsentimental realism."—Cheryl Sternman Rule, author of Yogurt Cultureand Ripe

Aran Goyoaga

"A book about parenting, food, and letting go, Jess Thomson's writing is full of emotion, wit and truth. This book strikes me to the core as I see myself reflected in the incongruence and beauty of daily life and our obsession with food and cooking."

Molly Wizenberg

"Jess is a smart, funny, straight-shooting writer with a great sense for food, and her A Year Right Here is no exception."

Interviews

Armed with “The Here List” and a Type A personality, Seattle-based writer and cookbook author Jess Thomson sets out to spend a year exploring the food of the Pacific Northwest with her family, planning to revel in the culinary riches of the spot she calls home and encourage her young son, who has cerebral palsy, to hatch out of what she sees as childhood pickiness. It begins as a physical adventure into the great nearby, with stories that chronicle building a backyard chicken coop, truffle hunting in Oregon, and razor clamming on the Washington coast with pith, humor, and entertaining insight into the region's personality. As the story progresses, we learn about five-year-old Graham's daily struggles with learning to walk, and watch as Jess essentially realizes she can't treat CP with food, no matter how good it is. Jess recognizes that dictating what her kid should eat isn't the best approach, and begins to focus on venturing out without him. Just as solo excursions like cycling in an unfamiliar wine country lead Jess to address her own emotional and physical limitations, Graham undergoes surgery on both legs. Traveling anywhere with Graham becomes impossible, or, at least, impractical, and the concept of “right here” becomes more about exploring an emotional home than a physical one. With touching, sometimes devastating stories that are relatable for all parents, Jess pulls the reader into Graham's recovery, and her abandonment of The Here List becomes a metaphor for Jess letting go. In the end, for Jess, leaving becomes just as important as staying.

Editorial Reviews

"We all know what happens to the list you make at the start of the year. But if everything had gone according to plan, Thomson’s book would be as straightforward as her original list. The twists and turns are what makes it — that and a solid recipe for fried chicken."

Max Watman

In a book so intimate—Thomson's family, friends and husband are all in here—she needs to walk a very thin line, and she does it gracefully. She's honest about people and their prickly selves. She doesn't cover for them, but neither is she mean. Of course, things don't go as planned. We all know what happens to the list you make at the start of the year. But if everything had gone according to plan, Thomson's book would be as straightforward as her original list. The twists and turns are what makes it—that and a solid recipe for fried chicken.

The New York Times Book Review - Max Watman

"While readers have front row seats to razor clamming on the Washington coast, truffle hunting in Oregon and a winery tour in British Columbia, it’s the way Thomson’s preparations are thwarted that make this book an interesting read."

ParentMap - Nancy Schatz Alton

"Reads like a five-course meal for the mind. . . . A Year Right Here is a genuine pleasure to read, as refreshing in its localism and eclecticism as it is in its universal soul-searching and earnest attempt to redefine one’s relationship with home."

Scott Neuffer (5 Hearts)

Reads like a five-course meal for the mind. . . . A Year Right Here is a genuine pleasure to read, as refreshing in its localism and eclecticism as it is in its universal soul-searching and earnest attempt to redefine one’s relationship with home.

Foreword Reviews (5 Hearts) - Scott Neuffer