Weekend Cooking: Recipes for a Perfect Marriage by Morag Prunty

In Recipes for a Perfect Marriage, author Morag Prunty (who also writes as Kate Kerrigan) blends the stories of modern day Tressa Nolan living in NY and Tressa's grandmother Bernadine who lived in Achadh Mor, Ireland with treasured Irish recipes. The result is a novel that parallels the lives of the two women generations apart at they adjust to married life and celebrates the tradition of passing recipes down in families.

Tressa Nolan is a successful food writer living in New York City.  She spent summers with her grandparents in Achadh Mor, Ireland and learned how to cook and bake at her grandmother Bernadine's side.  She idolizes her grandparent's marriage and expects to find the same partnership when she finally settles down.  At 39, she impulsively gets together with Dan who is the super in her building.  They have little in common but Tressa is inexplicably drawn to Dan and accepts his marriage proposal.  And then the real work begins . . .  Tressa realizes she may not love Dan is not sure there is enough between them to make it worth persevering through the hard times.  The differences between them become magnified and Tressa questions her decision to marry Dan.

Bernadine and James's marriage seems perfect to their granddaughter Tressa but when she is given her grandmother's journal Tressa realizes all is not as it seemed while she visited them. Bernadine had her sights on another man as a young girl and was devastated when that did not work out.  She married James but never felt the passion she had felt with her first love.  James loved her but she struggled to reciprocate even though she dutifully played the role of his wife.  Similar to her granddaughter, Bernadine often resented her husband even though, like Dan, James offered Bernadine a comfortable life.

The book alternates between Bernadine and Tressa's stories as each of their marriages go through various stages. It is a good lesson in persevering  - either woman could have quit their marriage a number of times but they stuck with it (perhaps in Bernadine's case because there was no other option) and rode the ups and downs of their marriages.  There were times I was annoyed by both women - they each had these good, hardworking men who adored them and yet they were still dissatisfied and frustrated by the efforts of these men to please them. Their ungratefulness made it difficult for me to feel empathy for them. At the same time, I did enjoy the parallels in their stories and, of course, all the references to places and traditions in Ireland.

Credit: Brown Eyed Baker

One of those traditions is cooking and the author includes many Irish recipes in this book.  One of my favorite, albeit most basic, is Irish brown bread.  My grandmother in Ireland would make it and we would enjoy a slice with jam at breakfast and again at tea.  It is simple but it's appeal lies in the simplicity.  Here is the recipe:

1. 3 cups whole wheat flour
2. 1 cup all-purpose flour
3. 1 teaspoon baking soda
4. 1 teaspoon salt
5. 1 1/4 cups buttermilk
6. 1 large egg, lightly beaten

1. Preheat the oven to 375°. 
2. In a large bowl, whisk both flours with the baking soda and salt. In a small bowl, whisk the buttermilk with the egg; stir into the dry ingredients with a wooden spoon until a rough dough forms.
3. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface and knead until smooth. Form the dough, put a cross in it and put it in the baking pan. Bake for about 50 minutes, until the bread has risen about 1/2 inch above the rim of the pan. Let cool to warm or room temperature, then slice and serve.     

Check out this Pinterest Board created for the book by the author.

Weekend Cooking is hosted each Saturday by Beth Fish Reads.  Participants are invited to share their food-related posts.  Check out what others have linked up this weekend!