Product Description "The return to the kitchen was not easy. I wanted my daughter to know her past, to eat what I had eaten in my childhood; however, I quickly realized that I no longer remembered my family's recipes....I forced myself to try and remember a recipe on my own. And that is how I discovered, as I had already known in my childhood, that it was possible to hear voices in the kitchen."Mexican novelist Laura Esquivel leapt to international fame with Like Water for Chocolate. With millions of copies sold in hardcover and paperback, and with the phenomenal success of the movie, it is truly one of the most beloved stories of the last decade. In her latest book, Between Two Fires, Laura Esquivel continues to sustain us on levels beyond the physical. Between Two Fires is a wonderful collection of the best of her passionate speeches, short writings, and recipes from the last decade or so, most never published in English. Funny, poignant, imaginative, and insightful, Esquivel muses on all the topics we have come to associate with her -- love, life, family, and of course, the importance of food in all aspects of the human experience -- while also giving us a rare look at what makes her tick. Beautifully illustrated with delightful drawings, this gem is the perfect gift book for her many fans, as well as for foodies and readers of Latin literature everywhere.From the Hardcover edition. About the Author LAURA ESQUIVEL is the highly acclaimed author of the New York Times bestsellers, Like Water for Chocolate and The Law of Love. Her third novel will be published by Crown in Fall 2001. Ms. Esquivel lives and works in Mexico City.From the Hardcover edition. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. At The HearthI spent the first years of my life beside the hearth in my mother's and grandmother's kitchens, seeing how these wise women, upon entering those sacred places, became priestesses, great alchemists who dealt with water, air, fire, and earth -- the four basic elements that comprise the entire universe. And the most surprising thing is that they did it in the most humble manner, as if they weren't doing anything, as if they weren't transforming the world with the purifying power of fire, as if they didn't know that the foods they prepared and the rest of us ate remained in our bodies for many hours, chemically altering our organisms, nourishing our souls and our spirits and giving us an identity, a language, a legacy.It was there, at the hearth, where I received my first lessons about life from my mother. And where Saturnina, a servant newly arrived from the countryside, whom we affectionately called Sato, once prevented me from stepping on a kernel of corn that had fallen on the floor, because it sheltered the god of maiz inside, and he couldn't be disrespected in such a manner. The hearth, my family's favorite place for entertaining visitors, was where I learned what was going on in the world, and where my mother had long talks with my grandmother, my aunts, and from time to time some now deceased relative. Held there by the hypnotic power of the flames, I heard all kinds of stories, but mostly stories about women.Then I had to leave home. I distanced myself completely from the kitchen. I had to study, to prepare myself for my future role in society. School was full of knowledge and surprises. For starters, I learned that two times two equals four, that dead people and rocks and plants can't talk, that there are no such things as ghosts, that the god of maiz and all the other gods belong to a magic, primitive realm and have no place in the rational, scientific, modern world. Oh, I learned so many things! At that time, I felt so superior to the poor women who spent their lives closed up in their kitchens. I felt sorry that no one had taken care of teaching them, among other things, that the god of maiz didn't exist. I believed that the truth about the universe was to be found in books a