Kitchen Confidential
A septuagenarian cook in Britain secretly follows her reality TV dreams.
ON THE FACE OF IT, 77-year-old Jennifer Quinn lives a life that belongs on “Masterpiece Theater.” She lives in bucolic Kittlesham, an English town that makes you feel as if you’ve “stepped into a secret garden or through the back of a wardrobe,” with “delightfully uneven houses and medieval pubs.”
Every morning Bernard, Jennifer’s husband of almost 60 years, wakes her with a cup of tea and the newspaper folded to her liking. Their house is infused with smells of tea loaves, biscuits and mince pies — because baking is Jennifer Quinn’s “superpower,” as Bernard tells anyone who will listen. Not a day goes by when she’s not measuring out flour and sugar on her old-fashioned kitchen scale, and turning out something sweet in their well-loved kitchen. If you were in charge of the closed captioning for Olivia Ford’s “Masterpiece” production, you would be writing “[lively strings music]” on every other frame to evoke a quiet, charming life together.
The problem is, Jennifer is feeling a little itch for something more. She and Bernard never had children, unless you count their adorable great-niece Poppy. She’s never had a career either, and watching Bernard fall asleep in front of the TV — and thinking of their marriage entering its final chapter — makes Jennifer yearn for something of her own.
Spontaneously, secretly, she applies to be a contestant on “Britain Bakes,” the popular show Bernard pretends not to keep an eye on while reading. “I’ve spent my life being led less by great ambition and more by small victories,” she types on her application. “The perfect swirl in a Swiss roll, the smooth pink dome of an expertly turned-out summer pudding, cutting into a baked Alaska to find the ice cream has remained cold.”
Our heroine also yearns for closure on a secret she’s carried for the better part of her life — and this is where those lively strings can start sounding minor-key ominous. Jennifer manages to land a spot on the show (still keeping her adventure a secret) and suddenly her baking becomes not just a vehicle of self-actualization, but a source of painful memories. The food writer Laurie Colwin once famously wrote, “No one who cooks, cooks alone,” and this holds true for Quinn. Each farmhouse loaf and chocolate log reminds her of someone she loves or someone she’s lost — and not necessarily in a good way. Ford, who got her start in television, toggles back and forth between young, motherless Jennifer trying to make a life for herself and older Jennifer grappling with dark regrets. In the middle of each story, bridging the past and the present is, of course, a baked good.
These connections can feel forced and the dialogue in between is somewhat heavy-handed. But in spite of all this, the story moves at an impressive clip. Fans of “The Great British Baking Show” will appreciate Ford’s many nods and winks to its formula — and find themselves engaged in a minor struggle: Do I keep reading to find out what happens next or do I start baking that delicious-sounding rhubarb and custard drizzle cake? Indeed, some of the most enjoyable parts of “Mrs. Quinn’s Rise to Fame” have to do with old-fashioned, wonderfully named British cakes — Tunnock’s, Battenburg, Cut and Come Again, to mention a few — and getting helpful baking advice. (What can you do with bread that doesn’t turn out well? Make bread and butter pudding!) In the end, Ford transports you back to that cozy, something’s-in-the-oven world where you somehow know (or at least believe) that everything is going to be OK. □