#131 The Flavor of Trauma: A Food Memoir Wrapped Around a Family Story

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Today’s episode with Bonny Reichert, author of the poignant memoir How to Share an Egg, is especially meaningful to me. It explores a profound father-daughter bond and a daughter’s journey to find herself while carrying the weight of her parent’s history as a Holocaust survivor.

I recently lost my beloved father, Jerome Sobel, who had advanced Alzheimer’s. We laid him to rest and said our final goodbyes last week. But as anyone who has witnessed this cruel disease knows, Alzheimer’s is a long goodbye—slowly erasing the person you love, piece by piece. My dad was a wonderful father and protector. I loved him deeply, and I will miss him forever.

Bonny, a former magazine editor, also shares a close relationship with her father. In this episode, she opens up about the challenge of structuring and telling her story—and the creative solutions that helped her bring it to life.

In This Episode

Bonny’s journey from journalism to food writing and memoir [2:23]
The inspiration behind How to Share an Egg and how Bonny blended personal and historical narratives for a universal message [3:17]
How Bonny’s Holocaust-surviving father shaped her understanding of food, resilience, and storytelling [3:45]
The power of a declarative sentence, key incident, conversation or experience [7:22]
How Bonny restructured her book chapter by chapter for a stronger narrative arc [8:30]
The role of metaphors in good writing [20:
The meaning of the phrase coping was containment
Why Bonny believes writing for the reader
Advice for writers tackling their own personal and family histories

Watch on YouTube

About Bonny Reichert

Bonny Reichert is a National Magazine Award-winning journalist. She has been an editor at Today’s Parent andChatelaine magazines, and a columnist and regular contributor to The Globe and Mail newspaper. When she turned forty, a now-or-never feeling made her quit her job to enroll in culinary school, and she’s been exploring her relationship with food on the page ever since. Bonny was born in Edmonton, Alberta, and lives in Toronto with her husband and little dog, Bruno. HOW TO SHARE AN EGG won the 2022 Dave Greber Book Award for social justice writing.

Connect with Bonny

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bonnyreichert.substack.com

Buy How to Share an Egg: A True Story of Hunger, Love and Plenty on Estelle’s Bookshop

Bonny and her Father on NPR with Scott Simon

Bonny’s article on Jane Friedman’s Site: How to Find Your Memoir’s Narrative Arc (There May Be More Than One)

Episode Mentioned: Episode #87 Writing Memoir that Reads Like a Novel and Captivates on Every Page Featuring Joanna Rakoff

Connect with Estelle

Erasmus Estelle Erasmus: an award-winning journalist, is the author of WRITING THAT GETS NOTICED (named a “Best Book for Writers” by Poets & Writers Magazine), a Contributing Editor for Writer’s Digest, and host of the podcast Freelance Writing Direct, which was named the winner of 2025 Podcast of the Year (under the education category) by the American Writing Awards. She is an adjunct instructor for NYU’s School of Professional Studies/Center for Publishing and Applied Liberal Arts, where she received a 2023 Teaching Excellence Award, and has written for over 150 publications, including The New York Times, Next Avenue/PBS, WIRED, The Independent,The Washington Post, and AARP: The Magazine, and was the editor-in-chief of five national publications. Follow her on Substack

Apply to be on Freelance Writing Direct in a coaching episode: email [email protected] and state three of the issues you are dealing with that you would like Estelle’s help with.

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Writing That Gets Noticed was selected as the Feb/March book for My WriteDay’s subscription box service of writing craft books! So honored! My WRITEDAY is a bi-monthly subscription box program that delivers curated products from authors, creators, and small businesses to readers in the US. It’s unique in that many products are sourced from writers who are also crafters and artisans.

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Read Estelle’s latest post on Substack (and an offer to paid subscribers) 5 Hard Truths about Essay Writing

Classes

Estelle’s private small Zoom classes are sold out for May/June 2025. Email her at [email protected] to get on the list for her next class (in the Fall) and find out how to secure your spot.There are currently 2 spots left for her fiction class for September. She is also doing a nonfiction class in October/November.

Her newest NYU class now taking registrations is Writing About Your Life Through Memoir, Essays and Articles.

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Grab your spot for the next editor-on-call event in partnership with NYU. Estelle will be in conversation with Willa Bennett, the editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan and Seventeen magazines. Register here before space runs out.

Sign up for her Webinar on April 24th from 1:00-2:30 pm ET for Writer’s Digest: Layering Throughlines and Timelines into Your Essays and Books to Pack a Punch. It will be generative, informational, and interactive.

Conference Appearances

Last month I participated in two panels at ASJA. I will have an upcoming post on that, with photos. I will also do a post on my upcoming TEDx Talk at Boston College at the end of this month.

I’m delighted to be speaking at Open Secrets Live on May 3rd on the relationship panel. Here is a link to the event (there are limited tickets left for $25). Here is a recent piece I wrote for Next Avenue/PBS about life as the ‘Dating Diva‘. Here is a link Rachel’s episode #129 on the podcast.

Here is a description of the panel I’m in. I love the company I’m with.

Panel of essayists and memoir authors discussing relationships and how to write about them. Speakers include Dirty Lola, sex edutainer, Estelle Erasmus, author of Writing That Gets Noticed and host of the Freelance Writing Direct podcast, Judy McGuire, author of How Not to Date, Gabrielle Alexa Noel, content creator and author of How to Live With the Internet and Not Let It Run Your Life, and Molly Roden Winter, author of More: A Memoir of Open Marriage. Moderated by Rachel Kramer Bussel.

Recent Podcast Appearances

I was delighted to appear on my producer, Hayleigh Hayhurst’s new Podcast Cafe . We spoke about why I started podcasting (named winner of the 2025 Podcast of the Year in the Education category) from the American Writing Awards, how I handle my podcast, getting guests, and my surprising tips for people starting out. Check it out on YouTube, here.