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Breaking the Chain: How I Banned Chain Restaurants From My Diet And Went From Full To Fulfilled

In 2009 Allyson Reedy broke the chain. She stopped eating meals, snacks and goodies from the chain restaurants that line America’s streets and dominate our stomachs. Her food memoir, Breaking the Chain: How I Banned Chain Restaurants From My Diet And Went From Full To Fulfilled, chronicles her year-long experience as she sought out local alternatives to the food we’ve come to rely upon.

Breaking the Chain is Fast Food Nation (Eric Schlosser) told from Carrie Bradshaw’s point of view (if she loved manicotti as much as Manolos). It’s about passing up ritual office breakfasts of bagels and donuts. It means having awkward conversations and waiting longer for food. It involves breaking social customs and inconveniencing friends. It necessitates supporting your neighbors and local community. It also means discovering new favorite foods, saving money and (for Allyson) losing weight.

Breaking the Chain began with Allyson wanting to eat better tasting, more adventurous food. After watching friends, family and strangers eat unsatisfactory meal after meal at chain restaurants and get fatter as a result, she wondered how we could break this chain of mediocrity, obesity and commercialism. By giving up corporate-controlled meals, she figured she could achieve her goal of eating the most delicious possible food and maybe even learn something about her eating habits along the way.

The experiment turned into so much more than tasty food. Somehow, eating guilt-free turned into the world’s easiest weight loss method. During the worst economic downturn of our lifetime, it became a means of keeping community restaurants in business – and neighbors employed. It’s possible Allyson reduced her carbon footprint by half a step and increased her life by a few years. She unwittingly became social commentary and got in a battle with The Man. In other words, it got interesting.In 2009 Allyson Reedy broke the chain. She stopped eating meals, snacks and goodies from the chain restaurants that line America’s streets and dominate our stomachs. Her food memoir, Breaking the Chain: How I Banned Chain Restaurants From My Diet And Went From Full To Fulfilled, chronicles her year-long experience as she sought out local alternatives to the food we’ve come to rely upon.

Breaking the Chain is Fast Food Nation (Eric Schlosser) told from Carrie Bradshaw’s point of view (if she loved manicotti as much as Manolos). It’s about passing up ritual office breakfasts of bagels and donuts. It means having awkward conversations and waiting longer for food. It involves breaking social customs and inconveniencing friends. It necessitates supporting your neighbors and local community. It also means discovering new favorite foods, saving money and (for Allyson) losing weight.

Breaking the Chain began with Allyson wanting to eat better tasting, more adventurous food. After watching friends, family and strangers eat unsatisfactory meal after meal at chain restaurants and get fatter as a result, she wondered how we could break this chain of mediocrity, obesity and commercialism. By giving up corporate-controlled meals, she figured she could achieve her goal of eating the most delicious possible food and maybe even learn something about her eating habits along the way.

The experiment turned into so much more than tasty food. Somehow, eating guilt-free turned into the world’s easiest weight loss method. During the worst economic downturn of our lifetime, it became a means of keeping community restaurants in business – and neighbors employed. It’s possible Allyson reduced her carbon footprint by half a step and increased her life by a few years. She unwittingly became social commentary and got in a battle with The Man. In other words, it got interesting.

The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food

From the legendary editor who helped shape modern cookbook publishing—one of the food world’s most admired figures—an evocative and inspiring memoir.

Living in Paris after World War II, Judith Jones broke free of the bland American food she had been raised on and reveled in everyday French culinary delights. On returning to the States—hoping to bring some joie de cuisine to America—she published Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The rest is publishing and gastronomic history.

A new world now opened up to Jones: discovering, with her husband, Evan, the delights of American food; working with the tireless Julia; absorbing the wisdom of James Beard; understanding food as memory through the writings of Claudia Roden and Madhur Jaffrey; demystifying the techniques of Chinese cookery with Irene Kuo; absorbing the Italian way through the warmth of Lidia Bastianich; and working with Edna Lewis, Marion Cunningham, Joan Nathan, and other groundbreaking cooks.

Jones considers matters of taste (can it be acquired?). She discusses the vagaries of vegetable gardening in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont and the joys of foraging in the woods and meadows. And she writes about M.F.K. Fisher: as mentor, friend, and the source of luminous insight into the arts of eating, living, and aging.

Embellished with fifty recipes—each with its own story and special tips—this is an absolutely charming memoir by a woman who was present at the creation of the American food revolution and played a seminal role in shaping it.

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