The Kitchen Shrink (how The Food We Eat Is The Key To How We Love)

By (author) Oskis, Andrea
Short description/annotation:
From McDonald’s to ‘mum food’, this is Esther Perel meets Nigella Lawson - an eye-opening, fascinating and accessible deep dive into understanding how our stories of love, loss and attachment are connected to the food that we eat, and are written all over our plates.
Description:

A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR

Did you know that the food we eat says a lot about how we love?

Psychologist Dr Andrea Oskis shows us how we connect with each other and how we can change our personal ‘recipes’ to have better relationships.

Along the way, she also reveals her own food story about love and loss. Inviting us into her therapy room with her patients, she tells us:

the real reason why comfort food comforts
why dessert isn’t a good idea when you’re stressed
why you should never give a bottle of hot sauce to someone who has been rejected
Be prepared to never look at your plate in the same way again.

Review quote:
Easy-going and anecdotal in a way readers of Esther Perel will recognise
Review quote:
Poignant and often sad, the stories of Oskis’s patients peel back the layers of the human mind and our attachment to people and things... What becomes clear as consommé is that food is humanity’s original and universal love language
Review quote:
An illuminating read.
Review quote:
I''ve had a lot of books across my desk, but nothing like this! Dr Oskis shows us that what’s on our plate speaks volumes about our hearts.
Biographical note:
Andrea Oskis is a psychologist, a food writer and a professional cook. Her academic expertise is human relationships; how we connect, love and attach in couples and communities, and she has researched, taught and written about this for more than twenty years. Andrea is Greek Cypriot and so, perhaps not unsurprisingly, the kitchen has always had a natural pull. In 2018 she took an intensive course in classic cookery at Leiths School of Food and Wine. Andrea’s food writing has been published in Vittles, Pit Magazine and Gastronomica, The Journal for Food Studies. She is a member of the Guild of Food Writers. In 2022, Andrea was shortlisted for Moniack Mohr’s Emerging Writer of the Year and a Guild of Food Writers Award. In 2023, she won the MFK Fisher Last House Writing Contest. She is also a Fellow of the British Psychological Society.
Promotional headline:
From McDonald’s to ‘mum food’, this is Esther Perel meets Nigella Lawson - an eye-opening, fascinating and accessible deep dive into understanding how our stories of love, loss and attachment are connected to the food that we eat, and are written all over our plates.
Feature:
''Attachment styles'' and ''attachment theory'' are the latest social media buzzwords when it comes to love and relationships - magazines are full of features about how to understand your attachment style to have better relationships, which is what Oskis explores through food.
Feature:
Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller has sold 80k (TCM)
Feature:
The popularity of TV shows such as Couples Therapy - ''one of the most talked about shows in recent years'', according to GQ - and Married At First Sight indicates that we are obsessed with relationship-based content to navigate our own relationships.
Feature:
Like bestsellers Christie Watson''s The Language of Kindness, Henry Marsh''s Do No Harm and Stephen Grosz''s The Examined Life, each chapter is a story that invites us into a space that feels very private and intimate, and that sheds light on our own personal situations.