A story about one woman's search for self-love, experienced through food and travel.
On the surface, Jackie Kai Ellis' life was the one that every woman - herself included - wanted. She was in her late 20s and married to a handsome man, and she had a successful career as a designer and a home that she shared with her husband. But instead of feeling fulfilled, happy, and loved, each morning she'd wake up dreading the day ahead, searching for a way out. Depression clouded every moment, the feelings of inadequacy that had begun in childhood now consumed her, and her marriage was slowly transforming into one between two strangers - unfamiliar, childless, and empty. In this darkness, she could find only one source of light: the kitchen. It was the place where Jackie escaped, finding peace, comfort, and acceptance.
This is the story of how, armed with nothing but a love of food and the words of the great 20th century food writer M. F. K. Fisher, one woman begins a journey - from France to Italy, then the Congo and back again - to find herself. Along the way, she goes to pastry school in Paris, eats the most perfect apricots over the Tuscan hills, watches a family of gorillas grazing deep in the Congolese brush, has her heart broken one last time on a bridge in Lyon, and, ultimately, finds a path to life and joy.
Told with insight and intimacy, and radiating with warmth and humor, The Measure of My Powers is an unforgettable experience of the senses.