Discover the Unexpected Joy and Secrets Hidden Within Tanya Bush’s Year of Baking
Will This Make You Happy is a book that you can read through, like a more typical memoir, and also cook your way through. I expected that one part, either the memoir or the recipes, would be stronger, but neither feels shorted. The memoir is a beautiful coming-of-age story, and the recipes are fun and approachable; they read clearly and felt well-tested.
The orange-almond cake, brown butter hazelnut chocolate chunk cookies and cinnamon-swirl banana bread I made (twice) for this review all turned out great, and it was fun to have a tangible, sensory experience linking back to the story. But what’s very special is the way that life and cooking inform and illuminate each other throughout this book. Will This Make You Happy says much about desires and appetites. Bush could have stopped with the idea that going after what you want is the important thing, but she goes deeper than that. Much of the learning is in how those desires move outward into the experiences, the enjoyment, of others.
