Reviews & Media
The qualities reviewers recognized in my memoir, The Bread and the Knife—precise observation, strong storytelling, intimacy, and emotional resonance—are the same qualities I bring to my collaborations as a nonfiction ghostwriter and book developer.
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​Praise for The Bread and the Knife
​“Evocative... Drzal traces the delicate emotions packed into a scene with the precision of a miniaturist. She is particularly skilled at conveying the quality of pleasure taken in the face of loss... and has a knack for metaphor so perfect as to seem inevitable.”
— The New York Times Book Review (Editor’s Choice)
​“Dawn Drzal may not be a household name, though that could soon change. Her new food memoir… checks all the right boxes: great storytelling, memorable foods, and essential life lessons imparted from the kitchen.”
— Portland Press Herald
“Sumptuous… Employing various dishes or meals as Proustian madeleines, the author dives into the sensuous experiences of her life.”
— Booklist
“Leaves readers hungry by association, as Drzal strongly connects intimacy with eating, offering portraits of who she chooses to share meals with, recalling the influence of M.F.K. Fisher.”
— Library Journal
“Drzal… charmingly reflects on her life with food, and artfully demonstrates how certain meals, no matter how simple or ornate, can resonate for years.”
— Publishers Weekly
“A gifted storyteller who mixes humor and pathos as deftly as whisking scrambled eggs… The Bread and the Knife joins the ranks of my other favorites in the food memoir genre. It is touching, comical, and winsome. I loved it.”
— Books Is Wonderful
“Spanning the globe yet never straying from the intimacy of the simplest of meals… The Bread and the Knife cuts into the stuff of life, both the dramatic and the prosaic—and the stuff of sustenance is the blade.”
— Julie Powell, author of Julie and Julia
“Each of the twenty-six brief, glowing chapters in this book unwraps a food memory… arranged A to Z, and you’ll wish the alphabet had more letters just so Dawn Drzal would keep on writing.”
— Laura Shapiro, author of What She Ate and Perfection Salad
Where My Work Has Appeared
– PBS: Dinner and a Book, (episode devoted to The Bread and the Knife)
– New York Society Library: “Food and Memory” author conversation
– Essay excerpt on Salon: “My Date with a 1985 Château d’Yquem”
In addition to my memoir, I’ve written extensively for The New York Times Book Review, and have contributed essays, criticism, and features to The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Food & Wine, and other national outlets. My work also been anthologized in Eat Memory: Great Writers at the Table, Amanda Hesser, ed., and Mommy Wars, Leslie Morgan Steiner, ed. These pieces reflect the same storytelling sensibility I bring to nonfiction ghostwriting and book development.