🧈 Butter 🧈

Rating: 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈 

5 Sticks of yellowy emulsified goodness 😋

I have not read a book about food that's made me quite literally drool while reading since Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto. This book was a love letter to the culinary arts. I had to pause at one point to make a batch of cookies just to stop from salivating 🤤 

The story follows Rika, a young journalist looking to become the first woman in her office to gain an official writer's seat with her paper. Rika decides her best bet for a career making story would be to gain an exclusive interview with serial killer Manako Kajii, a gourmand mistress accused of killing three of her patron lovers and defrauding many more.

Rika writes to the convicted serial killer, on the advice of her closest friend Reiko, asking for advice on recipes - Kajii's excellent cooking skills being a major factor in the downfall of her supposed victims. That simple letter snowballs into an unlikely friendship and perhaps a mutual obsession. But who is really in control - the interviewer or the interviewee? 

This novel blends food with questions of class and gender politics that are relatable not only to those in Japan but to women around the world. Unique yet relatable characters fill the story and Asako Yuzuki's prose was utterly (udder-ly? Lol 🐄) investing.

This book made me homesick for Japan - the country, my friends, the food. Any book that brings out that kind of reaction in me, that nostalgia, is going to be a five star read.