Charlotte Silver

Bennington Girls Are Easy is about two best friends, and their wider circle of college friends. Actually, it’s about living in the city right after college.

Would definitely recommend, but don’t expect a cheery adventure about college girlfriends making in the big city, though. That NetGalley blurb is a bit misleading. Instead, this novel is a blunt and somewhat dark look at sex, money, social class, and the evolution of college friendships in adulthood.

rel="nofollow" target="_top">Reed my full review… (mais)

She's Got Books on Her Mind

"I grew up rich. The setting—or stage set—of my childhood was the velvety pink-and-green dining room of my mother's restaurant, Upstairs at the Pudding, located above the Hasty Pudding Club in a red-brick Victorian building at 10 Holyoke Street in Harvard Square. My life was not a child's life of jungle gyms and Velcro sneakers, but of soft lighting, stiff petticoats, rolling pins smothered in flour, and candied violets in wax paper. It was a life of manners, of air kisses, of "How do you dos," and a life for which I needed six party dresses a year, three every spring and three every winter. We were rich. Everybody knew it.

Yet we were not; we were not rich at all. For as long as I could remember, the restaurant had tottered on the brink of collapse. I always knew we would lose it one day. And we did lose it; we did."

Charlotte grew up in a world filled with all manners of fancy things. In a little girl's eyes growing up in a restaurant like Upstairs at the Pudding was simply a wonderful dream that you didn't want to wake up from. Who wouldn't want to grow up at Upstairs at the Pudding when you are able to eat dessert whenever you want, stay up late with the grownups, be coddled by the staff, and best of all you get to wear the prettiest (preferably pink) dresses. But not everything's right in Charlotte's world. As she grows up things start to change. Her parents' divorce, the staff who were once her friends start to leave, and even her namesake, Charlotte au Chocolat, is disappearing from the menu. Everything is changing and only after the fact does she realize what the restaurant, her mother, and her childhood really meant to her life.

I really enjoyed reading about Charlotte's childhood. It wasn't just her childhood... but for the most of the book it was. At first it was all glitz and glam but like you know from the quote above on the very first page Charlotte told you how it was. I actually forgot about how the restaurant would inevitably close down because I had immersed myself so much in the here and now of the story. And what a story it was. Charlotte described her childhood in a way where it was like she was someone else. All wise but not out of touch with what was going on with her life. It's like she was reflecting on her life while she was telling her story. Her "voice" was one of the most recognizable things that I remember about this book.

In Charlotte's world people could be put into two groups. You are either a front room person which means you are like the glitz and the glamour of the restaurant or you are a kitchen person which means you are the backbone and rough, raw passion of the restaurant. We are all labeled as something or put into categories by someone else one way or another. I see people in different ways just like other people do and like Charlotte does which she got from her mother. It was interesting to read about her view on different people. I could never quite get who front people were. I understand kitchen people. They are easy to understand. They are the strugglers, the hard workers. I liked her description of her view on different types of people because well... I liked how she described everything! I love the way she wrote and this is a perfect example of how she writes. In that wise, and awareness type of tone. I feel like she's in her head a lot and is an observer of the world which I've always felt I am like.

"When I was a small child, I associated my parents with individual flavors. It was the same way you might filter someone through a filter of color - thinking of some people in blues, other people in reds - but instead of color, the sensation I latched on to was flavor. My mother's flavors were always those of the desserts she made - suave caramels and milk chocolates and the delicate, utterly feminine accents of crystallized violets or buttery almonds. But my father's flavors - my father's flavors were something else altogether. They were subtle and elusive and melted on the tongue only to vanish before you could place them. Dark, adult flavors, and slightly bitter: veal carpaccio, silvery artichokes. And, most of all, mushrooms: chanterelles, chicken of the woods, and - my father's favorite mushroom of all - trumpets of death."

Charlotte even categorized her parents which is funny because I think about my parents and who they are. I see obvious differences but I also see obvious similarities. It's like when you see a couple together for a long time. They just fit together. Charlotte's parents did not. Her mother was this very stylish woman who was very... strict in a way. She was just tough about emotions. She's the type of person who probably expresses her love not by words, hugs, or kisses, but by food and advice. I never really liked her but I couldn't say I full out hated her or anything like that. I think it was the resolution in the end. This scene she and Charlotte had together. Charlotte felt resolved after it but I really didn't like what her mother had to say. Her tough attitude wasn't needed then.

Her father is a rough type of person. I don't really think he's the loud type of person which I first envisioned in my head for him. He's more reserved and secretive which you and Charlotte come to know. After the divorce you figure out who he really is. He photographed brooms and other weird still life. I was as confused by him as Charlotte was. He's completely different than what you expect. Around the time you are discovering what he really is like you get to know the downsides of owning a restaurant. There's this sad undertone to the book but it's not like you feel overly sad or anything. It's just there. I'm guessing I didn't feel it as much because again how Charlotte wrote her story. It was a closed off view of her life which means you didn't feel overly emotional about those parts in her life. I did feel connected to the story though and couldn't help relaxing into and discovering what's going to happen next.

The whole story reminded me of the 1950's. You've got what seems like a great life that you wish you had because this book seriously makes you hungry whenever you just look at the cover and you want to stuff a whole cake into your mouth... Anyways there is this credit building up and you act like it's not there but for Charlotte she didn't even know. She didn't know there was a price to her life. It's not like her mother was intentionally wasting money she just wanted the best for her restaurant and life and just like any restaurant it can close down. It's like how when you realize the concept of money and then you fully realize what it takes to feed a family and live in a home. It's her growing up and realizing these things like we all do. It captured those moments in our life where we grow up and your view of everything is different from what you felt the world was like as a child. This book reminded me of all those things but mainly it reminded me of why I love memoirs. I want to read more memoirs again because of this book more importantly more food memoirs.

Overall:

Fantastic writing, great story and characters. Loved that I could get a sample of the restaurant world through this book especially when I think of all that food. The transition of childhood to adult and figuring out how the real world is was wonderful because we can all relate to those changes. Only thing is that scene with her mother in the end. I didn't feel like her story should have been resolved with that scene like I felt it was made out to be.… (mais)

Grew up in her mother's restaurant "Upstairs at Pudding" in Cambridge
Rich/traded everything — glamorous dresses to wear there — interesting light read — other side of Kitchen Confidential

Charlotte Silver grew up in her mother's restaurant. Located in Harvard Square, Upstairs at the Pudding was a confection of pink linen tablecloths and twinkling chandeliers, a decadent backdrop to a childhood. Over dinners of foie gras and Dover sole, always served with a Shirley Temple and often candied violets for dessert, Charlotte kept company with a rotating cast of eccentric staff members. And after dinner, in her frilly party dress, she might catch a nap under the bar until closing. Her one constant was her glamorous, indomitable mother--nicknamed "Patton in Pumps" by one line cook--a wasp-waisted woman forever clad in stilettos and cocktail dresses who shouldered the burden of raising a family and running a kitchen after her husband left.… (mais)