Try One Bite

For fans of Tamar Adler and Ruth Reichl, a poignant yet comic tale of how one woman dodged a late-life crisis, discovered her best self, and fell back in love with her childhood sweetheart: restaurants.

Karen Stabiner has found community—and joy—in restaurants since she was six years old. So when one big lie dismantled her life—ended a thirty-year marriage, cost her the house where her daughter grew up, and sent her from Los Angeles to New York and back again in pursuit of work—she did the only thing she could think of to get herself through it: She went out to dinner. With a guy she’d known for forty years; with family and friends; by herself. Again and again and again.

Dinner dates with that old friend promised a happy ending, but life is not a rom-com. This story is about what really happens when we have to rebuild our lives from the ground up—what almost was, what never will be, the surprises we can create for ourselves. It’s about how to retool our lives rather than disappear. Like they say: A woman’s work is never done.

Fiery, funny, and full of flavor, Try One Bite is one determined woman’s account of pushing back so she doesn’t get pushed aside—and of discovering herself in the process.