STOVES & SUITCASES: Searching for Home in the World’s Kitchens by Cynthia D. Bertelsen (Paraguay)

Cynthia D. Bertelsen (Paraguay 1972-73)

Take a girl with an iffy start in life. Mix in wanderlust and cooking. And lots of books. Add a dollop of yearning for home and belonging. Knead in a pinch of self-discovery. Let rise and ripen. The result is Cynthia D. Bertelsen’s Stoves & Suitcases: Searching for Home in the World’s Kitchens, a reflective and rollicking saga that begins in an incubator. Cookbooks soon pique her wanderlust and her longing to be elsewhere. A semester abroad in Mexico and a stint in the Peace Corps ignite those embers of wanderlust. That fire never stops burning. Years of living and working and cooking in the developing world follow, with long-term sojourns in Honduras, Haiti, Morocco, and Burkina Faso. It’s an age-old tale of leaving home to find home.

Stoves & Suitcases has been named Best in Food Writing in the USA for 2022 by Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.

Cynthia  has also written:

• Mushroom: A Global History,
• A Hastiness of Cooks: A Handbook for Deciphering Historic Recipes and Cookbooks,
• In the Shadow of Ravens: A Novel,
• Wisdom Soaked in Palm Oil: Journeying Through the Food and Flavors of Africa,
• Meatballs & Lefse: Memories Recipes from a Scandinavian-American Farming Life,

A Hastiness of Cooks won the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in 2020 for the Best in Culinary History category for both the U.S. and the world. Meatballs & Lefse: Memories Recipes from a Scandinavian-American Farming Life was a Finalist in the 2021 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

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Stoves & Suitcases
by Cynthia D. Bertelsen (Paraguay 1972-73 )
Turquoise Moon Press
386 pages
September 2021
$11.95 (Kindle); $19.95 (Paperback)