Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley

You can now hear our interview with Lucy right here...

What is Relish? Not the condiment eaten on a Chicago-styled hot dog (although that does sound delicious) but rather the latest book by Lucy Knisley. Is it an auto-bio graphic novel or an illustrated cook book? Is it a travelogue or a cooking memoir? In truth, it's all these things. Relish opens with an adorably drawn panel of Lucy as a baby, clothed in a diaper, seated on the family's kitchen counter grasping a wheel of cheese. It ends in a panel of equal adorableness with Lucy as an adult, eating carrots in her own kitchen with a smile etched on her face as she tells us to face life with "Relish".

In between these panels we get a tome chock full of anecdotes, short stories and, yes, recipes that have helped shape Lucy's life.

For any follower of hers it's always a treat when a new Lucy Knisley book hits the shelves. Whether it's the short and sweet comic strips of Radiator Days or the enticing recounting of her trip abroad in the similarly food-themed French Milk, her work never disappoints and consistently shows growth into not just an wonderful cartoonist but into an equally capable writer. Perhaps the growth can be attributed to the independent nature of her work. She is, after all, responsible for the creative content of Relish, from the words to the pictures and unlike some artists who illustrate their own writing, she has a wonderful eye for what to show and what to tell.