Great book by an author who I already liked – Anya Von Bremzen’s Please to the Table is a fantastic resource for the various cuisines of the former Soviet Union. I was surprised that there was little cooking in this new volume, Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking. While there’s a fair amount about food, much of it is about politics and growing up, and just life in general, and there aren’t any recipes or even hints at them while reading – which I suppose eminently fits the subtitle, A Memoir of Food and Longing. Only upon reaching the end of the prose, about 90-some percent of the way through the book, did I discover that all the recipes are provided at the back, more or less as a final chapter – I think I’d have liked to know that upfront. Still, her story more than makes up for that and I definitely recommend the book.