Press Release: How To Eat A Small Country by Amy Finley
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jill Browning
212-572-6182/jibrowning@randomhouse.com
“A charming, bare-bones chronicle of a woman reclaiming her family. . . . The author’s account of her determination to rework her life into one worth living is bracing and uplifting. A five-star read.” —Kirkus Reviews
HOW TO EAT
A SMALL COUNTRY
A Family’s Pursuit of Happiness, One Meal at a Time
By Amy Finley
“With her very capable taste buds . . . Finley explores the endless idiosyncrasies of French cuisine. Personal but never oversharing, Finley bravely relays the difficulty of her feelings during this nadir-turned-adventure, and folds her family’s unlikely story into a bold bouillabaisse of a food memoir.” —Booklist
A professionally trained cook turned devoted stay-at-home mom, Amy Finley decided on a whim to send in an audition tape for season three of The Next Food Network Star, and the impossible happened: she won her own cooking show on national television. So why did she walk away from it all? HOW TO EAT A SMALL COUNTRY: A Family’s Pursuit of Happiness, One Meal at a Time (Clarkson Potter; on sale April 2011) is Amy’s triumphant and endearing tale of family, food, France, and forgiveness.
While Amy was hoping to bring American families together with accessible recipes from her show, The Gourmet Next Door, she ended up separating from her French husband, Greg, who couldn’t handle the thought of being married to a celebrity or having their family thrust into the public eye. Amy felt betrayed. She was living a dream—or was she? She was becoming famous, cooking for people out there in TV land, in thirty minutes, on a kitchen set . . . instead of cooking and eating with her own family at home.
In a desperate effort to work things out, Amy made the controversial decision to leave her budding television career behind and move her family to France, where she and Greg lived after they first met and fell in love. HOW TO EAT A SMALL COUNTRY is Amy’s incredibly personal story of her rewarding struggle to reunite her family through the simple, everyday act of cooking and eating together. Meals play a central role in Amy’s new life, from meeting the adorable little bunny destined to become their classic Burgundian dinner of lapin à la moutarde to dealing with the aftermath of a bouillabaisse binge. And as she, Greg, and their two young children wend their way around rural France, they gradually reweave the fabric of their family.
At times humorous and heart-wrenching, and always captivating and delicious, HOW TO EAT A SMALL COUNTRY chronicles the food-filled journey that one couple takes to stay together.
AMY FINLEY was the winner of the third season of the hit show The Next Food Network Star. After her win, she hosted Food Network’s The Gourmet Next Door. A Paris-trained cook and pastry chef, she was a regular contributor to Bon Appétit. She lives in San Diego, CA, with her husband and their children.
ABOUT THE BOOK
HOW TO EAT A SMALL COUNTRY
A Family’s Pursuit of Happiness, One Meal at a Time
By Amy Finley
Clarkson Potter/Publishers
On Sale: March 29, 2011 • ISBN 978-0-307-59138-8 • Price: $24
Visit Amy Finley on the web at www.howtoeatasmallcountry.com and www.facebook.com/howtoeatasmallcountry.
For more information on the book and Amy Finley, please contact:
Jill Browning, Clarkson Potter Publicity, at 212-572-6182 or jibrowning@randomhouse.com.
