Over the course of 195 weeks, food blogger and new mother Sasha Martin cooked a meal from every country in the world, sharing her family’s experiences on her Global Table Adventure blog. The ambitious experiment won Martin a dedicated audience—but it belied a troubled personal history. In the prologue of her new book, Life from Scratch: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Forgiveness , Martin explains, “Most people who have had a rough background will admit there’s something unsettling about finding happiness after difficulty.” Her memoir unselfconsciously shares her remarkable life story and how Martin found peace with her own happiness at the stove in her Tulsa, Oklahoma, kitchen.

Sasha Martin is an award-winning writer and blogger who spent almost four years cooking her way around the world. She graduated from Wesleyan University and was an M.F.K. Fisher scholar at the Culinary Institute of America. Her work has been featured on NPR and CNNGo as well as in Whole Living, Bon Appetit, The Smithsonian, and The Huffington Post. Her website, Global Table Adventure, is a go-to hub for foodies around the world.