Win a copy of a New York Times Notable Book of The Year, Memorial by Bryan Washington today! This is a beautiful and poignant novel you’re going to enjoy. 5 winners will be selected!
For all you readers! We’ve partnered with Riverhead Books to give away Bryan Washington’s debut novel Memorial to 5 lucky JOC winners this holiday. The highly anticipated follow-up to Washington’s critically acclaimed book of short stories Lot, Memorial follows two men living in Houston — Mike is a Japanese-American chef at a Mexican restaurant and Benson’s a Black daycare teacher, and they aren’t sure if their relationship has run its course.
While the novel is neither a cookbook nor even a food book, cooking is a language of love throughout the story — love for a parent, love from a parent, love of a partner, and even lack of love.
Memorial is an exciting read, and we know you’re going to enjoy it. Enter to win a copy now!
About Memorial by Bryan Washington
Memorial is a funny and profound story about big first loves, family in all its forms, becoming who you’re supposed to be, the limits of love, and how sharing food can say so much without us saying anything at all.
The novel is packed with different types of dishes and cuisines, and each serves as vital motifs for relationships, people, and places. Whether it be discarded crinkled hamburger wrappers; sultry Sriracha sprinkled omelettes; uncomfortable Tex-Mex restaurants or elaborate feasts of okonomiyaki, kitsune udon, curry, rice and more; the story is driven by meals and cooking in both Houston and Osaka.
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, TIME, O, the Oprah Magazine, Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, Good Housekeeping, and Real Simple. “A masterpiece.” —NPR
“No other novel this year captures so gracefully the full palette of America.” —The Washington Post
A funny and profound story about family in all its strange forms, joyful and hard-won vulnerability, becoming who you’re supposed to be, and the limits of love.
About Bryan Washington
Bryan Washington is a National Book Award 5 Under 35 honoree, and winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. His first book, the story collection Lot, was a finalist for the NBCC’s John Leonard Prize, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award.
Enter to Win A Copy of Memorial by Bryan Washington
GIVEAWAY RULES:
Please Note: Your email for the comment entry has to match with your email address in my Email Newsletter Subscription mailing list.
This giveaway contest closes on Tuesday, December 22, at 12 p.m. PST and is open to US residents only.
Five (5) winners will be selected via Pick Giveaway Winner Plugin and contacted via email, so please include a valid email address in the email address entry box (please double check your spelling!).
The winners are required to respond within 36 hours to claim the prize.
HOW TO ENTER:
The more tickets/comments left on this blog post will increase your odds of winning. Good luck!
Ticket 1 (Required): Follow @riverheadbooks on Instagram and leave a separate comment below on this post.
Ticket 2 (Required): Subscribe to Just One Cookbook Email Newsletter if you haven’t and leave a comment below on this post.
Ticket 3 (Optional): Follow JOC Instagram and then leave a separate comment below on this post.
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Ticket 5 (Optional): Like JOC Pinterest and leave a separate comment below on this post.
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The winners are…
- Alan K Murakami
- Vanessa Allison
- Jolene Chang
- SR
- Michelle Xie
Congratulations! We will contact you shortly.
“All of which is to say that I found my best recommendation in a gay bar. I asked this guy if he ate karaage, and he looked at me like I was a fucking idiot. He put a hand on my shoulder. Everyone, he said, knows where to find karaage, even if they don’t eat it, because they probably know someone who does.”
“Maybe it’s unreasonable to say that I didn’t have a single piece of bad chicken in Tokyo. But, truth is, karaage is worth traveling over 6,000 miles. Or the short drive to your mother’s. Or walking to the chicken shack up the road. Or searching out the recipe online or whatever, trying your hand until you nail what you’re looking for. I’m not the first person to say that food is our greatest diplomat, and I won’t be the last person to parrot that truth. But how else could I have found myself in another country, across the world, looking for a dish I came up on?”
“One time in Houston, where I live, some friends of mine threw a potluck. After fighting for a week over group chat, we decided that we’d all bring our takes on fried chicken. The intent was that each of us would cook own recipe, or one we’d grown fond of, or one we’d grown up on. And the night of the meal, one batch smelled of curry and thyme. Another pair of legs held a hint of yogurt. A third had a wealth of paprika, and it was all the same dish, but none of them was the same.”
“For better and worse, it was a nice reminder of home. So I finished the bag and trashed it, watching some kids across the street watch me.”
“One afternoon around lunch time, walking back to my place, I came across a KFC just outside of the train station. It had the trademark red banner. There was a line, but it wasn’t formidable. The service was quick, and the chicken smelled crisp, and after walking a bag of wings to the park, it turned out it was pretty good, too—flavorful, and crunchy. But there wasn’t a linger. The recipe wasn’t salty. The batter felt heavier on the stomach, and it was, pretty obviously, made with a larger audience in mind.”
“Without fail, no matter which venue I tried, I found delicious karaage in all of them. But more than that, people who were willing to share things: their meal, their space, and that particular moment in time. No one had to do that. And certainly not for a foreigner, in a moment as disastrous as ours. But in a country where I wasn’t even the distant minority, that willingness to share fried chicken translated wholly across oceans.”
“It wasn’t a conscious decision to end up in parlors tucked in Ueno or Nakameguro, or a bar on the fringes of a protest in Kasumigaseki, or wandering in laps in search of a karaage stand in Tokyo Station. At one spot, tucked beside Shinjuku-Sanchome Station, a group of kids fucked up from midday drinking pointed out their favorites. I stepped into another place, off of a sidestreet in Meguro, after the chef behind the window beckoned me in (I’d already passed the window twice). He sliced samples of each piece, passing them in tongs over the bar.”
“I was in town for a few weeks, and I’d planned on nine different karaage spots, but that quickly turned into something like 20. Some were recommended specifically by friends, and others I’d heard about out in the world. But, mostly, I just stepped into places I thought looked interesting. I’d ask a bartender, or a chef, or the next person in line what was good. Every single time, they led me to somewhere delicious—and, in this way, I found myself in parts of Tokyo I wouldn’t have thought to explore otherwise.”
“I went back up to the counter for four more pieces, and the woman behind the counter laughed. She said something I couldn’t follow, and I nodded along. Then she gave me a thumbs up. I gave her one, too.”
“He wasn’t wrong about that, but it took me a while. I caught the Keio line headed out of the closest station. After an hour of walking in circles, it finally started raining, and I ended up under an awning beside this older guy in a suit. Eventually, he asked me if I was lost. Said he didn’t mean to be rude, but he’d seen me walk by twice. When I told him I was, I showed him my phone, and he smiled, pointing behind me: The stand was a block away.”
Excited!
I’m a newsletter subscriber! Definitely adding this to my “to-read” shelf!
“My first night in Tokyo, at a takoyaki stand by my BnB, I asked the guy dousing the octopus where he recommended I start. He kindly dealt with my poor Japanese before switching over to English. A good spot, he said, was actually in Asakusa. Then he pulled the spot up on my phone. He asked if I was good with directions. I told him I wasn’t, because I’m not, but he laughed and said my stomach would self-correct.”
“So fried chicken, and its many permutations, were my introduction to gastronomy. But it was also one of my first lessons in diplomacy, and intimacy, and the meal’s role as a conduit. And then there were the ways that recipes and stories move across the Earth, from table, to countertop, to pit, to lawn.”
“There was stumbling into Willie Mae’s, or jogging under the overpass for Manchu, or loafing around the counter of the Frenchy’s on Scott Street. When my Jamaican mother’s family fried their batches in Kingston, they’d fluff the meat in a yolky dough. My aunts in Florida stuffed everything in plastic bags, saturating thighs with salt, shaking the hell out of every limb. And an ex of mine favored his grandmother’s recipe, which she’d perfected in South Korea—marinated in garlic, dipped in honey-stirred gochujang, served over beers in our table on the floor.”