Notes on a Banana: A Memoir of Food, Love, and Manic Depression

Written by David Leite

Narrated by David Leite

The stunning and long-awaited memoir from the beloved founder of the James Beard Award-winning website Leite’s Culinaria—a candid, courageous, and at times laugh-out-loud funny story of family, food, mental illness, and sexual identity.

Born into a family of Azorean immigrants, David Leite grew up in the 1960s in a devoutly Catholic, blue-collar, food-crazed Portuguese home in Fall River, Massachusetts. A clever and determined dreamer with a vivid imagination and a flair for the dramatic, ""Banana"" as his mother endearingly called him, obsessed over proper hair care, yearned to live in a middle-class house with a swinging kitchen door like the ones on television, and fell in love with everything French, thanks to his Portuguese and French-Canadian godmother. But David also struggled with the emotional devastation of bipolar disorder. Until he was diagnosed in his mid-thirties, David found relief from his wild mood swings in cooking, Julia Child, and a Viking stove he named ""Thor.""

Notes on a Banana is his heartfelt, unflinchingly honest, yet tender memoir of growing up, accepting himself, and turning his love of food into an award-winning career. Reminiscing about the people and events that shaped him, David looks back at the highs and lows of his life: from his rejection of being gay and his attempt to ""turn straight"" through Aesthetic Realism, a cult in downtown Manhattan, to becoming a writer, cookbook author, and web publisher, to his twenty-three-year relationship with Alan, known to millions of David’s readers as ""The One,"" which began with (what else?) food. Woven throughout these stories are the dishes David loves—the tastes that led him to happiness, health, and success.

A blend of Kay Redfield Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind, the food memoirs of Ruth Reichl, Anthony Bourdain, and Gabrielle Hamilton, and the character-rich storytelling of Augusten Burroughs, David Sedaris, and Jenny Lawson, Notes on a Banana is a feast that dazzles, delights, and, ultimately, heals.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Apr 11, 2017
• ISBN: 9780062660657

David Leite

David Leite is a food writer, cookbook author, and web publisher. He founded Leite’s Culinaria (leitesculinaria.com) in 1999. In 2006, he had the distinction of being the first winner of a James Beard Award for a website, a feat he repeated in 2007. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Martha Stewart Living, Saveur, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, Pastry, Men’s Health, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Sun-Times, and the Washington Post, among other publications. His first book, The New Portuguese Table, explored the food of his heritage and won the IACP’s 2010 First Book: Julia Child Award. David is also a frequent correspondent and guest host on public radio’s The Splendid Table. He has been heard on NPR’s All Things Considered and has appeared on United Stuff of America, Beat Bobby Flay, and the Today show. When no one is looking, he still dances in his underwear in the kitchen.

Reviews for Notes on a Banana

[jane3phillips-2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed reading this candid memoir by food writer David Leite. It was an interesting journey that the reader was taken on as he chronicled growing up and into adulthood. I could relate to the fact that as a food writer he is a late bloomer, having previous careers in acting and advertising first that did not work out, mainly due to his struggles with manic depression before it was diagnosed properly and treated. Indeed a love of food he had inherited from his Azorean heritage, he being a first generation American, and it always was there, but not until later was he able to have it as his main purpose in life. It was interesting to read about his struggles with his homosexuality in a time when it was still considered by some a disorder that could be fixed and in Leite's case, he attempted to through the cult of Aesthetic Realism. I felt that once he had accepted it as a part of himself and found Alan, "The One", it enabled him to then deal with the real mental illness of manic depression. I think this is a great read for those who like memoirs (like me) and it can also help those dealing with mental illness.

[michaelc0oliveira · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Amazing life story, at times it seems a bit too much