Julia Pandl

I was expecting this to be more of a restaurant/food memoir than it was. It does start out that way as the author describes how she and her siblings help out in their father's restaurant where there are no favorites and the hard work builds character (as well as muscles and endurance). She begins working in the restaurant at the young age of 12 years old but then as she grows up the book becomes more about her relationship with her father. I'm not sorry I read it, but it wasn't a book that I urged my friends to read. That's why I rated it 3 stars.… (mehr)

Julia Pandl was the youngest of nine children born to Terry and George Pandl. Her father ran a very popular restaurant in a suburb of Milwaukee WI that was particularly famous for Sunday Brunch. At the age of 12 Julie began working in the restaurant – without salary. Her first job was “pick up the parking lot” – ridding the asphalt of used cigarette butts and discarded candy wrappers. Once she was done with that her sister set her up on a 5-gallon pickle bucket turned upside down, gave her a pile of shrimp larger than she was and said, “Start peeling.”

This is a delightful memoir of a young woman growing up as the baby of the family with a larger-than-life father. She takes us from sullen pre-adolescence to young adulthood, from being the pampered youngest child to assuming the caregiver role for her aging parents. Along the way she treats us to some laugh-out-loud observations on life, love, faith, family, friendship and trust.

The first half of the book is more focused on her experiences as a teen, working in the restaurant, and traveling with her father to and from work. The book takes on a more serious tone in the second half, when first her mother and then her father are stricken with the illnesses that will eventually take their lives, and Julie moves back home to help care for them. It’s poignant without being maudlin.

I’ve seen reviews that characterize this as “a cross between A Girl Named Zippy and Ruth Reichl’s Tender at the Bone,” and I have to agree.
… (mehr)