How to Share an Egg

A True Story of Hunger, Love, and Plenty

By: Bonny Reichert

Narrated by: Bonny Reichert

A moving culinary memoir about the relationship between food and family—sustenance and survival—from a chef, award-winning journalist, and daughter of a Holocaust survivor.

“Beautifully written, heartbreaking and hopeful.”—Ruth Reichl, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Novel

When you’re raised by someone who once survived on potato peels and coffee grounds, you develop a pretty healthy respect for food.

Bonny Reichert avoided everything to do with the Holocaust until she found herself, in midlife, suddenly typing those words into an article she was writing. The journalist had grown up hearing stories about her father’s near-starvation and ultimate survival in Auschwitz-Birkenau, but she never imagined she would be able to face this epic legacy head-on.

Then a chance encounter with a perfect bowl of borscht in Warsaw set Bonny on a journey to unearth her culinary lineage, and she began to dig for the roots of her food obsession, dish by dish. Stepping into the kitchen to connect her past with her future, the author recounts the defining moments of her life in a poignant tale of scarcity and plenty: her colorful childhood in the restaurant business, the crumbling of her first marriage and the intensity of young motherhood, her decision to become a chef, and that life-altering visit to Poland. Whether it’s the flaky potato knishes and molasses porridge bread she learned to bake at her baba Sarah’s elbow, the creamy vichyssoise she taught herself to cook in her tiny student apartment, or the brown butter eggs her father, now 93, still scrambles for her whenever she needs comfort, cuisine is both an anchor and an identity; a source of joy and a signifier of survival.

How to Share an Egg is a journey of deep flavors and surprising contrasts. By turns sweet, salty, sour, and bitter, this is one woman’s search to find her voice as a writer, chef, mother, and daughter. Do the tiny dramas of her own life matter in comparison to everything her father has seen and done? This moving exploration of heritage, inheritance, and self-discovery sets out to find the answer.

©2025 Bonny Reichert (P)2025 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“I started crying on page one; a few pages later I burst into laughter. This beautifully written book takes readers on an emotional journey that is both heartbreaking and hopeful.”—Ruth Reichl

“Bonny Reichert’s stunning memoir is proof of the power of hope in the face of epigenetic sorrow, and how the human soul and spirit hew inexorably to healing, sustenance, and life. The need to sustain oneself and one’s loved ones is pervasive here, and Reichert’s ability to weave together a seamless story about food, love, and withering tragedy is masterful. I was captivated.”—Elissa Altman, author of Motherland

“How to Share an Egg is a beautiful, multilayered memoir taking the reader on a touching journey of discovery. In a world where so many things separate us, Reichert binds us together with a delicately woven braid of family, culture, and food.”—Jane Bertch, author of The French Ingredient