David Leite – NOTES ON A BANANA: A Memoir of Food, Love, and Manic Depression

David Leite, is an author, food writer and blog publisher. His first Portuguese cookbook, THE NEW PORTUGUESE TABLE, won the 2010 IACP Julia Child Award, as well as garnering other distinctions.

Now the acclaimed author has just published his second book; NOTES ON A BANANA: A MEMOIR OF FOOD, LOVE AND MANIC DEPRESSION.

David, who’s family is Azorean was raised in Fall River, Massachusetts in what he cleverly calls a “food crazed Portuguese home.” I think most of us Portuguese American’s can relate to what he means by that little phrase.

The new book will be be published by Dey Street Books, a division of HarperCollins, in April 2017. Pre-Order on Amazon below. You can also order his award winning; THE NEW PORTUGUESE TABLE at the Amazon link below this post.

Visit David’s Blog; Leite’s Culinaria where you’ll find amazing recipes, Portuguese recipes,  writings, giveaways and much more! Congratulations to David and we wish him continued success!

Amazon Review: NOTES ON A BANANA: A MEMOIR OF FOOD, LOVE AND MANIC DEPRESSION

The stunning and long-awaited memoir from the beloved founder of the James Beard Award-winning website Leite’s Culinaria—a candid, courageous, and at times laugh-out-loud funny story of family, food, mental illness, and sexual identity.

Born into a family of Azorean immigrants, David Leite grew up in the 1960s in a devoutly Catholic, blue-collar, food-crazed Portuguese home in Fall River, Massachusetts. A clever and determined dreamer with a vivid imagination and a flair for the dramatic, “Banana” as his mother endearingly called him, yearned to live in a middle-class house with a swinging kitchen door just like the ones on television, and fell in love with everything French, thanks to his Portuguese and French-Canadian godmother. But David also struggled with the emotional devastation of manic depression. Until he was diagnosed in his mid-thirties, David found relief from his wild mood swings in learning about food, watching Julia Child, and cooking for others.

Notes on a Banana is his heartfelt, unflinchingly honest, yet tender memoir of growing up, accepting himself, and turning his love of food into an award-winning career. Reminiscing about the people and events that shaped him, David looks back at the highs and lows of his life: from his rejection of being gay and his attempt to “turn straight” through Aesthetic Realism, a cult in downtown Manhattan, to becoming a writer, cookbook author, and web publisher, to his twenty-four-year relationship with Alan, known to millions of David’s readers as “The One,” which began with (what else?) food. Throughout the journey, David returns to his stoves and tables, and those of his family, as a way of grounding himself.

A blend of Kay Redfield Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind, the food memoirs by Ruth Reichl, Anthony Bourdain, and Gabrielle Hamilton, and the character-rich storytelling of Augusten Burroughs, David Sedaris, and Jenny Lawson, Notes on a Banana is a feast that dazzles, delights, and, ultimately, heals. (Amazon.com)

Order THE NEW PORTUGUESE TABLE: