Review: Memoir of the Sunday Brunch

 This is one of the best memoirs I've read this year and is one of the few I will endorse and recommend that you buy.  It is entitled Memoir of the Sunday Brunch by Julia Pandl.  Initially, I ordered this book because it was produced by Algonquin Books.  I would like Algonquin Books to seriously consider publishing my own family memoir so I wanted to discover the type of memoirs the house publishes.  First, I though this book would be about a family that owns a restaurant that is known for its Sunday brunch feature.  And it is a book about that written by the youngest girl in a family of nine kids!  And I thought my grandmother deserved a noble peace prize for raising 11 kids! I did learn quite a bit about the restaurant business through this book because each of the nine children at one time or another works at the restaurant and in particular, the Sunday brunch.  I mean you start to realize the team work it takes to run a successful business, how important food aesthetics is, and the importance of timeliness and cleanliness. 

This memoir is about more than the restaurant business though.  It's about what we inherit from our parents and how much they influence us as adults even though as kids, our parents quirks drove us crazy.  I mean most teenagers don't even want to be seen with their parents.  Eventually, there comes a time when your parents no longer take of you; it becomes your turn to take care of them while you also take care of yourself.  The book is also about how we become similar to our parents, but also different because of our time and experiences with them.  Ultimately, you will ask yourself, what will I remember most about my mom and dad when they are gone?  What relics will they leave behind to trigger my most vivid memories of them?  And more importantly, what ideas, habits, and values have I adopted as a result of these particular two people bringing me into this world and spending an extraordinary amount of time raising me.  This memoir is what I expected and so much more which is why I highly recommend it.