I knew I was going to love J. Ryan Stradal's KITCHENS OF THE GREAT MIDWEST from the very first page, where he mentions Happy Chef, a beloved diner I remember well from my years growing up in Minnesota. Stradal, a lifelong Midwesterner who recently moved to Los Angeles, suffuses his debut novel with place-specific details like this, but it's not just current or former Midwesterners who will respond positively to the book. It's about food, family, and maturing into the life you were born to live, sometimes without really knowing why.

It was possibly inevitable that the daughter of an up-and-coming Minneapolis chef and a sommelier-in-training would grow up to have a refined palate and a passion for good food and wine, but Eva Thorvald largely had to come to this place without the direct aid of her parents. Abandoned by her mother as a newborn, Eva also lost her father when she was just an infant, and was raised by an aunt and uncle who preferred McDonald's hamburgers to the heirloom tomatoes and heritage pork shoulder that Eva's father hoped to introduce her to.

"Its well-developed, beautifully crafted linked stories each serve as a pleasing and tasty course in and of themselves, and together they add up to a banquet that will leave readers more than satisfied."

Nevertheless, in the linked chapters that compose KITCHENS OF THE GREAT MIDWEST, Eva finds herself compelled to pursue tastes and flavors (even outrageously spicy ones) and to learn as much as she can about cooking, even from a very early age. Despite the loss of the foodie parents she never knew, Eva matures into a woman --- and a chef --- either of her parents would be proud to know and gratified to be fed by.

Much like Elizabeth Strout's OLIVE KITTERIDGE, KITCHENS OF THE GREAT MIDWEST is a "novel in stories," told from the points of view of eight different characters and touching more or less obliquely on Eva's life. She appears in each of the stories but is rarely, if ever, the central character. Instead, we learn about her through glimpses and inferences, even as we come to know more about the lives of the friends, family and acquaintances who move in Eva's periphery. Each chapter/story gets its name from a food item, many of which (such as Venison and Bars) exhibit Stradal's fondness for Midwestern culinary traditions (even when they get cutthroat, as in a county fair baking contest dominated by Lutheran church women). There's even the obligatory potluck supper, although this one is long on locally sourced ingredients and short on tater tot hot dish.

Stradal includes a number of recipes --- including several gleaned from church cookbooks --- that will delight those who enjoy the culinary descriptions in the novel as much as the storylines. But that's not to say that one has to be a foodie or even an amateur baker to enjoy KITCHENS OF THE GREAT MIDWEST. Its well-developed, beautifully crafted linked stories each serve as a pleasing and tasty course in and of themselves, and together they add up to a banquet that will leave readers more than satisfied.