Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the e-advanced reader's copy of this book. I will admit that in the first chapter, I was not fully sold on this book. I thought it was going to be full of saviorism and altruism that just makes you feel like you're a bad person for not doing as much. However, I was proven wrong in all the right ways. This book is touching, so genuine, and also very thoroughly researched with information on how poverty, trauma and food insecurity is all related.

Aptly titled The Meth Lunches because of the first chapter, Foster writes about her experience with Charlie, a laborer she and her husband hire who is addicted to meth. The rest of the book goes on to cover people she's met through being a foster parent or through being an active member of community care. If you want an example of someone who is truly engaged in their community, Foster is it. She starts a community fridge and pantry during the pandemic. She explores topics from mental health and it's relationship to housing security to the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and people's relationships to food later in life. Food is at the center of her writing, how it connects to everything from meth addiction, to feeling safety in our relationships.

I was pulled into this book by the narrative style. It was a fast and engaging read. I learned a lot about the meth culture and how it poisons lives. I appreciated the author's viewpoint. However, I couldn't help but wonder how worn out her children must have been with all the constant upheaval of people in and out of their home. The author also comes off a bit as a 'White savior' and I was a bit put off. But I couldn't help myself. I finished the book in two sittings and think that it will be one that readers will enjoy.

I admit that I was attracted to this book by both the title and the cover. I think it is one of the best titles I've seen. But it really doesn't give you much of a clue on what the book is about. That might just be masterful because it is difficult to sum it up. These are not complaints; this is already a strong candidate for my favorite book of the year!
My daughter lived in Las Vegas for a few years, but Foster presents a totally different Las Vegas from the one we normally "see." Her life is a bit of a circus itself and there are vivid descriptions of the people she meets and the food she cooks. Yet, it is also a deep dive into the problems our society faces with the folks that are not Well. She adeptly tackles some of these issues by providing a food pantry in front of her house during the pandemic. There are successes and there are challenges--and there are failures. Foster shares them all. Her energy for all of it is astounding.
This book is an eye opener. Every American needs to read it for themselves and think about how they can be part of the solution.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. It's a significant read and I hope it shoots to the top of the best sellers' lists.

The Meth Lunches was absolutely fascinating. It follows one family as they embark on home renovations, feeding, and getting to know the day laborers that are working in their home. The stories that follow are ones filled with poverty, addiction, and homelessness. It shows humanity, care, and concern for one's fellow humans. It's something I'm going to purchase for the collection and encourage our non-fiction book club to read.

On rare occasions, a reader will open a book that touches them, educates and makes them think deeply about a subject. The Meth Lunches is just such a book.

I have long been a fan of Las Vegas and the Mojave Desert. My husband and I have been there six times, and I hope to go again and venture further around the state. Yes Las Vegas has that glam factor, with the shows, chef restaurants, gambling and high-end shopping. But beyond that, it has a stunning natural environment which intrigues. I love the landscape and the tenacity of the plants and wildlife. The brilliant sunshine and cool morning air. And underneath all the glamour, there is an ever-present grimy underside to Las Vegas which you can easily see if you open your eyes to it - homelessness, prostitution and exploitation of women, begging, heart-breaking poverty, ramshackle homes and buildings and untreated mental illness.

Kim Foster and her family call Las Vegas home. Her collection of essays tells a story about living in this troubled city, while she and her husband operated a community pantry to feed struggling people, lent a compassionate ear to those struggling with addiction, family trauma and homelessness, and fostered children coming from broken families and broken lives. Her depth of understanding and practice of non-judgement is inspirational. While there is much heart break in these pages, there is also hope and plenty of discussion about the changes required to turn things around. It should be a required read for any city mayor or councilor facing housing shortages, addiction issues and poverty, which is just about everywhere these days. Kim clearly explains that there are no easy fixes or quick solutions for these deep and far-reaching problems, but the solutions lie in empathy, a commitment to community and faith in the human ability to grow and change.

A sincere thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with a copy to read. I plan on purchasing a hard copy when it comes out in October 2023 and rereading it. This is a book that will stay with you for a long time. Highly recommended.

As a sociologist, writer, and former homeless woman this book gave me all the feelings. It is a wonderful first hand telling of poverty culture. The rules are different for people who have been on the streets. They often team up for a short time to survive. They push boundaries and they act entitled and if you haven't been there you won't understand it, but this author absolutely approaches all of these people with compassion and works to understand them. It is beautiful!
I also love that Kim just feeds everyone. It is her way of building community and I feel like we need more of that. I too love to feed people.
I also learned a lot about meth, something I have personally avoided learning about.
I wish we allowed the unhoused to advocate for themselves but it doesn't work that way. I appreciate when people like Kim speak of their struggles with absolute humanity.
I guess what I want to say here is that I feel seen, in a good way, for what might be one of the first times. People don't see you as worthy of their time even if you escape poverty. There is something they sense in you that makes them "other" you. You can have all the education and skills and job experience but people keep you on the lower rungs because they don't trust you. I could maybe write an entire book about that, as I exist on a borderline between poverty and middle class living. The bridge out of poverty I suppose.
She's spot on with the mental illness things as well. We do want to walk about our suicidal ideation with people who won't have us locked up for something we can't help. And food is a sort of a cure.

My brother is schizophrenic and his entire existence centers on food. He makes new recipes and waits to sample my food daily. We find each other in the kitchen every afternoon when I get home from work. We cook and we eat and we talk. This book opened a new way of thinking about my brother for me. I was annoyed with him for always being there and now I am grateful for it. He does a lot better with these rituals.
And now we have news articles advising us to save money by skipping breakfast, as if starvation is going to be a positive thing.
And yeah our community ways of helping, like the food pantry the author sets up are a way for the government to get out of helping their own people. It is not good for us at all.

Thank you for this. Write more. I will read them.

*This book was received as an Advanced Reviewer's Copy from NetGalley.

Within the first half of the first chapter, I was convinced I was going to dislike this book. I had an inward groan as I thought it was going to be centered around performative altruism and inauthentic. I am ever so glad that it came around, slapped me in the face, and ended up being one of the more heartfelt and incredible books that I've read in a while.

Foster wrote this book after an essay (that actually encompasses the first chapter) was published that touched people and garnered interest. In that essay, she details her experience with a hired laborer that is doing house projects, his addiction to meth, her lunches with him talking about his life and struggles, and how the cycle kept going for him in terms of relapses and recoveries. This fully expanded book takes stories much like his, with people the author has met through either her work in foster care or in supporting the community around her.

While this book is definitely about the people she interacts with and their stories, it also is a lens into just how food, poverty, and trauma are all intertwined and what it means to gain either comfort or stress from the act of eating or feeding people. She explores how the 'well' exist in society and don't understand the various hardships or cycles that poverty can exert on a person. How mental health, and the treatment of it can sometimes hinder more than help and is largely viewed from that 'well' lens without establishing what a person truly needs. As stressed before, she touches on community and how social currency and other factors in people's environment and upbringing can how downstream impacts on their lives and choices.

All of this is delivered in a very honest way. She could have come in with a savior complex (and she touches on this herself), but I think she's really good at pulling up and assessing what her true purpose is when talking with people or living in her community. I can definitely say, with my own honesty, that I don't think I have the mental capacity or want at this point in my life, to do some of the work she has done. But at the very least, this book helped me examine some of my biases and formed opinions of situations of poverty and/or drug use, etc. Which makes it a valuable read for anyone who may want to do the same.

I had completely wrote this review and as soon as I finished, realized I didn't even mention the food descriptions in this book. That was an oversight. I should have mentioned them. It's not hard to believe the author has won some awards in food writing. I just want to purchase her cookbook and roll in it.

Review by M. Reynard 2023

This is a decidedly different book: getting work done on their home, the author and her family feed the day labourers that they find in Las Vegas: workers whose lives are ruined by crystal meth. Real meals. Healthy Meals, Meals that made my mouth water in her descriptions of what she cooked that day to feed them all. (There is no synopsis of this book on Netgalley, Goodreads or even found via Google, but that is the gist of this book.)

Originally, there was an essay entitled "The Meth Lunches: The Care and Feeding of a Drug Addict" that was nominated for a James Beard award for Personal Essay which was expanded into this book by the author Kim Foster. Her book holds no punches and it is an honest and unrelenting look into how meth has destroyed the workers she feeds and hires and how they affect her life in general. Add in fostering kids whose families were often also destroyed by meth and this book is a searing example of how drugs are ruining not just people but families, economies and the country as a whole.

The book is unrelenting ... as is the addiction culture/problem/epidemic that is ruining not just Las Vegas or Nevada or the USA: meth (And fentanyl. And heroin. ) is destroying our cities, its citizens, its families: in many ways, it is worse than the COVID19 pandemic/endemic as it is certainly harder to get over a virus (in most cases) than it is to get over addictions. I had no idea that they can now make meth without ephedra or the stink shown in the motor home in "Breaking Bad"...the image of his clothing outside the RV sticks in my head all these years later.

Is there a way to rid the world of this addiction? I really don't know, but the care and consideration of the author and her family toward helping people makes me want to fly to Vegas just to hug Miss Foster and thank her for taking care of the people she helped and fed.

An incredible read that I will recommend to everyone in social services, as well as book clubs and readers of excellent non-fiction books. Be prepared to be hungry, though, and to fall into the rabbit hole of finding recipes for the meals that she cooked as mentioned in the books.