Dinner with Edward: A Story of an Unexpected Friendship

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Isabel Vincent delves deeply into matters of the kitchen and the heart with equal and unabashed passion. Her book on Swiss banks and dormant accounts in the Nazi era -- Hitler's Silent Partners -- was the recipient of the Yad Vashem Award for Holocaust History. You will absolutely adore the budding friendship between Isabel and the 93 year old Edward who likes to cook for her.

In his nineties, he'd recently been widowed and Valerie was worried about him losing the will to live. Edward would like to give up on life after the death of his beloved wife Paula and Isabel is at a personal crossroad herself. The dinners soon turn into a weekly event and a loving friendship that ends up helping both Isabel and Edward lead happier lives. He teaches her the little joys that make life worth living and she gives him a reason for hanging in there again.We have cut ourselves off from the wisdom and beauty of those who have gone before and inundated ourselves with our own myopic view of the world, cluttered by social media and steeped in egotistical self-help propaganda. At one point (location 1193 of the kindle version) Edward criticizes funerals he attended because family members became too emotional and he felt the deceased weren't being honored properly, so he asked if he could speak at one service and had everyone laughing in a matter of minutes (no ego there). It is easy to fall deeply for Edward's tender heart as Vincent learns how he has savored his life, and over time, begins to create a life that's more inviting and full for herself.

When Isabel meets Edward, both are at a crossroads: he wants to follow his late wife to the grave, and she is ready to give up on love. I never properly bonded with the author who seems mildly whiny and self-absorbed despite the book's point which seems to be the gift of friendship and love and cooking. While hosting dinners for people all around him, developing their taste buds, he was also feeding their souls and reminding them to value the good things in life. Although I can picture the atmosphere and warmth that the dinners exude, I feel like I am relying more on my experience than the author’s descriptions. I'm not sure if she intended for the reader to feel the nuances of her remark, or was truly unaware of the ageism in it.By end of the book, we see that Isabel has indeed "grown up", moving outside of the self-centred orbit that was hers upon moving to New York. Asides from being pretentious and exclusionary, the foodie talk was more often than not unlinked to the "story. Dinner with Edward is a foodie memoir about a journalist who as a favor, starts having dinners with her friend's father to check on him as he is depressed after the death of his beloved wife.