What I really loved about One Egg is a Fortune is how each personality that contributed to the book is so wonderfully represented by their contribution.  Dudu Fisher provided a recipe for Baked Fish a’la Dudu which on the surface is overly flamboyant but at its heart a formula for making an accessible dish that is comforting and delicious. Shmuley Boteach gave a recipe for a traditional Persian stew called ghormeh sabzi, a dish that Boteach has no real relationship to but that in itself so perfectly illustrates his persona that his offering makes sense. It also exposes the reader to a really unique and easy to make recipe that they would probably never have seen in any other kosher cookbook.  Marlee Matlin gives her recipe for oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. It’s a sweet down to earth submission from a woman who is not just amazingly accomplished and inspiring; she is also someone whose thoughtfulness and charm are so tangible as to be moving.  

These personality traits are so inherent in the narrative and recipes presented in One Egg is a Fortune that reading the book becomes compelling. As you transition from appetizers to main courses to deserts you read the stories of these fifty diverse personalities and the recipes that follow and are given a clear insight into the character of the author. This creates a fascinating sort of account of how we all respond to food and paints a clear picture of how all the authors are culturally connected. In this way One Egg is a Fortune becomes its own character. The book is the house, the unifier, the Mcguffin that retains these characters and, in acting as that vehicle, it surpasses just being a mechanism in which recipes are stored and transforms into its own unique character.