Join us for an evening with Leah Eskin, author of the historical novel Like Wafers in Honey (Levine Querido, pub. April 14, 2026). Based on the experiences of a real Italian-Jewish cook named Edda Servi Machlin, the novel tells two stories: that of Stella, a Jewish girl from the Tuscan town of Pitigliano, who spends the winter of 1943 fleeing Fascist and Nazi brutality, and that of Edda, a Westchester housewife trying to save a lost treasure — Italian Jewish cuisine. Each chapter includes a recipe updated for modern kitchens. The event will be moderated by Rabbi Steven Stark Lowenstein of Glencoe's Am Shalom Congregation. Signed copies of Like Wafers in Honey will be available for purchase from The Book Stall.

Register if you'd like a reminder prior to the program. You can also opt to receive a text message reminder. All links and any specific event details will still be sent via email. This program will be recorded.

About the author: Leah Eskin writes “The Sweet Life,” a dessert column, for Midwest Living. She is the author of the memoir and cookbook Slices of Life: A Food Writer Cooks Through Many a Conundrum. During the pandemic, she launched an online bakery called Crumble Handmade Pastry. Her column "Home on the Range" ran in the Chicago Tribune for 15 years.

Like Wafers in Honey is getting great reviews. Here's one: "My father, himself an Italian Jew, used Edda Servi Machlin's recipes as a bridge to his culinary and personal roots. Machlin's life inspired this beautiful novel by Leah Eskin: a survival story and a cultural archive. It honors a nearly vanished world through narrative and recipes, showing how memory, food, and storytelling can resist erasure." 
—Yotam Ottolenghi, author of Jerusalem: A Cookbook and Ottolenghi Comfort