INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER AND SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 TASTE CANADA
AWARDS AND THE RAKUTEN KOBO EMERGING WRITER PRIZE. For fans of Eat Pray
Love, Wild, and H is for Hawk, The Measure of My Powers is the
story of one woman's search for self-love, experienced through food and
travel.
With searing vulnerability and unflinching honesty, Jackie Kai Ellis
takes us on an intense and immersive journey from her darkest moments to
the redemption she finds through her love of food, Paris, and
ultimately, herself.
--Jen Waite, bestselling author of A Beautiful, Terrible Thing
On the surface, Jackie Kai Ellis's life was the one that she and every
woman wanted. She was in her late twenties and married to a handsome
man, she had a successful career as a designer, and she had a beautiful
home. But instead of feeling fulfilled, happy, and loved, each morning
she'd wake up dreading the day ahead, searching for a way out.
Depression clouded every moment, the feelings of inadequacy that had
begun in childhood now consumed her, and her marriage was slowly
transforming into one between strangers--unfamiliar, childless, and
empty. In the darkness, she could only find one source of light: the
kitchen. It was the place where Jackie escaped, finding peace, comfort,
and acceptance.
This is the story of one woman's journey to find herself. Armed with
nothing but a love of food and the words of the 20th-century food writer
M.F.K. Fisher, she travels from France to Italy, then the Congo, and
back again. Along the way, she goes to pastry school in Paris, eats the
most perfect apricots over the Tuscan hills, watches a family of
gorillas grazing deep in the Congolese brush, has her heart broken one
last time on a bridge in Lyon, and, ultimately, finds a path to life and
joy.
Told with insight and intimacy, and radiating with warmth and humor,
The Measure of My Powers is an inspiring memoir, and an unforgettable
experience of the senses.
