An evocative, gorgeous four-season look at cooking in Maine, with 100 recipes No one can bring small-town America to life better than a native. Erin French grew up in Freedom, Maine (population 719), helping her father at the griddle in his diner. An entirely self-taught cook who used cookbooks to form her culinary education, she now helms her restaurant, The Lost Kitchen, in a historic mill in … Kitchen, in a historic mill in the same town, creating meals that draw locals and visitors from around the world to a dining room that feels like an extension of her home kitchen. The food has been called “brilliant in its simplicity and honesty” by Food & Wine, and it is exactly this pure approach that makes Erin’s cooking so appealing—and so easy to embrace at home.
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Finding Freedom A Cook’s Story : Remaking a Life from Scratch was an amazing story that started out with her wanting to do a completely different thing with her life. But growing up in Maine just seem to have her growing up helping as a normal child and playing with her sister. Growing up she was taught by her dad how to run the diner. She remembers going in there for breakfast and to catch the bus and after school. She saw what her dad did to her kittens in the burlap bag and kitty litter and water to kill them. She didn’t believe in God any more because in Sunday school she lifted her dress and showed them all her panties after what her dad did the to the kittens. I didn’t like her dad at all. I was in tears almost. She learned how to run the diner and cook what he taught her and he never showed her any feelings of love growing up.
Finally she graduated high school went on to college in Boston to become a doctor when came home for vacation she had got pregnant and that brought her back to Freedom to start to make a new life for herself.
This woman was determined to make a life for her no matter how tough it was going to be. She was just the was she was. Pregnant and working in the diner with the only support she had was her mother to help her through all of this. She went to the doctors and and her father told her she better hope it be blue. Well it was a boy that would carry on the family name. She went looking for a job so she didn’t have to live and have her parents support her and she found one and a small apartment for her and Jaim to live in.
Then her next step in life was to start another job and be stronger. She had this man who knew when she worked and he would come in on her shifts and tip her good. Well one night it was closing and they where all done closing up and just sitting there having a bite to eat when the phone ran and it was Tom he had left his wallet there so she checked and he did and ask her to drop it off. She said ok she could do that . Then it went to dinner and it went on to something more. Before she new it they were getting married .
This was where she knew that she was having problems because he stop coming home right after work and at night and then was coming home later and later that is when then the alcohol and abuse he started to take out on her. She knew that things where wrong and she would have to do something to pay the bills.
Then she went to the doctors and was put on pills for medical issues that she explained to the doctor. Well she got hooked on them and started taking more and drinking more.
Every time something knocked her down she got up and started all over again stronger and stronger than the last. When he took her son away was the the last straw for her she was going to prove to him and the courts that she could and would work to provide for her son and run a business.
Erin and her mom and sister worked in The Lost Kitchen and it was better because it was run by women who loved what they brought to the door everyday and night to serve there customers.
Erin was a very strong women and no matter what happened she was always remaking a life for her and her son stronger and better from Scratch.