Margot Fedoruk was born a prairie girl, whose only exposure to seafood was the stained flesh of smoked goldeye served cold with mashed potatoes on stifling Winnipeg nights. Then, at age twenty-three, she broke free from her stormy Slavic-Jewish upbringing and set out for the wilds for British Columbia. There, Margot planted trees topless, marched her steel-toed boots across the burnt landscape, and met the love of her life-a burly, red-headed sea urchin diver. A reborn west coaster, she embraced her new life and the ocean’s bounty-fresh scallops plucked from the sea, wasabi-covered sashimi smouldering on her tongue, and the exotic orange roe of the red sea urchin. This is the story of a family, whose livelihood depends on a spiny round creature that clings to the bottom of the sea, and the woman at the centre of it, clinging precariously to her identity as a modern-day fishwife. An unforgettable memoir infused with mouth-watering recipes, Cooking Tips for Desperate Fishwives is equal parts love story, survival story, and meditation on family dysfunction.
