How to Cook A Coyote: The Joy of Old Age

Soigné! A recipe for survival. A juicy, sexy, and wise memoir from the “gifted essayist and meditative thinker” (The New York Times) that captures the urgency of life at age ninety-eight

From telling what it’s like to go blind to confronting the ongoing erosion of time and the mystery of what’s to come, How to Cook a Coyote recounts a decade of change as Betty Fussell moves from Manhattan to Montecito and an old folks’ home, one where Julia Child once resided, recalling family, friends, enemies, and lovers with wry humor, affection, and a sharp-eyed confrontation with mortality. All the while, the coyote watches. And waits. But ultimately Fussel’s exciting new work provides a recipe for how to enjoy each moment as if it were the last day of your life.

Imagining the occasion of her final day in this life, celebrated food writer and critic Fussell reflects on the people, places, and events of an adventurous life. But she’s not alone. A coyote—an emblem of the wild and all the things one can’t control—stalks her, taking on greater emotional and metaphorical resonance as the day progresses.