Jennifer Klinec, founder of a London cooking school, has traveled all her life in search of new places, people and food. In The Temporary Bride: A Memoir of Love and Food in Iran, she goes to the Middle East in search of a cuisine that has been preserved throughout generations and is often kept behind closed doors. In the city of Yazd, she encounters Vahid, whose mother spends a few weeks teaching Klinec in their kitchen. Vahid shows the chef around the city, the two venturing out carefully in public with one initial goal: to eat.
Klinec's fearless palate is a fascinating way to experience Iran, and her skill for writing about food is phenomenal. As Klinec and Vahid develop a closer relationship, the later parts of the memoir become perhaps too focused on securing a temporary marriage license that would allow the couple to be seen together. Klinec's disarming candor about contradictions encountered during their courtship--wildly changing feelings, for example, or unexpected and incongruous aspects of the other person--is notable because she could have smoothed difficulties of conflicting backgrounds and expectations to serve the narrative.
The Temporary Bride takes the reader on a journey into a beautiful, complicated culture, encouraging a departure from the beaten path in search of pleasurable food, broader experience and the surprising relationships that inevitably develop while sharing a meal. --Richael Best, bookseller, Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, Wash.