An evening at The Georgian Hotel with Tarajia Morrell and Tejal Rao!

Join Zibby’s Bookshop at the iconic Georgian Hotel for a special evening celebrating Tarajia Morrell’s memoir, Desire Feeds the Feast. Tarajia will be in conversation with New York Times food critic Tejal Rao. Enjoy wine and light bites in The Georgian’s historic Art Deco lobby before the conversation begins. Books will be available for purchase and signing. RSVP required.

Parking: Valet parking is available in front of the hotel for an additional fee.

About the Book:

Born to one of New York’s most celebrated wine families, Tarajia Morrell grew up at the table, where conversation was wine-soaked and food was the love language—a merchant’s daughter amid the Manhattan elite.

In this lush, lyrical memoir, the James Beard Award-winning writer traces a life shaped by hunger—for beauty, for love, for pleasure, and for belonging. From the electric excess of the late-’90s New York City club scene to Hollywood tables where she served celebrities, Tarajia moved through the world restless but hopeful, unsure of what would come next.

Wherever she found herself, the pleasures of food guided her. The brine and brightness of ceviche on a Uruguayan beach. The intoxicating sprawl of Barcelona’s food markets. A perfectly ripe plum eaten over the sink by her graceful mother. Through deep heartbreak and loss, it was food that kept Tarajia tethered and whispered of who she was.

Desire Feeds the Feast is a boldly written memoir about the ache of lost loves, the comfort of a perfect bite, and the hard-won victory of finding home where least expected.

Tarajia Morrell is a native New Yorker who grew up at the table. Her food and wine reporting and essays have appeared in WSJ. Magazine, T Magazine, Food & Wine, Departures, and Cherry Bombe, among other publications. Morrell is the co-author of James Beard Award-winner Savor: A Chef’s Hunger for More, with Fatima Ali, and author of Soul of New York: A Guide to 30 Exceptional Experiences. She lives in Manhattan with her daughter.

Tejal Rao is a chief restaurant critic for The New York Times, expanding the newspaper's reach and range across the country. She was previously a reporter and critic at large, and before joining the Times worked as a restaurant critic for The Village Voice and Bloomberg News. Tejal is a former cook, copy editor and translator and has won two James Beard Foundation Awards for her restaurant criticism and a Vilcek Prize in creative promise. Her essays have been included in several editions of "The Best American Food Writing." She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, daughter and two extremely food-motivated dogs.