Week 3 here we go! This week our host is Veronica @ The Thousand Book Project and here's our topic: Week 3: (November 15-19) – Be The Expert/ Ask the Expert/ Become the Expert: Three ways to join in this week! You can either share 3 or more books on a single topic that you... Continue Reading →
A Career of Food Writing in France
My Place at the Table: A Recipe for a Delicious Life in Paris, by Alexander Lobrano It feels like it’s been way too long since I read a good foodoir, and especially one about France. They can be so pretentious for some reason. My Place at the Table, on the other hand, is such a... Continue Reading →
Three New Foodoirs
I only finished two of these, but I'm going to tell you about all three anyway. First up is a new release that's a read-in-one-sitting deal, in case you want a quick but fairly intense and even gritty read: Phyllis Grant's Everything is Under Control. Grant was a dancer training at Julliard, living in New... Continue Reading →
Ruth Reichl’s Beginnings in the Kitchen
Book review: Tender at the Bone, by Ruth Reichl (Amazon / Book Depository) Food writer, magazine editor, and restaurant critic Ruth Reichl's first memoir, Tender at the Bone, is a significant one in the "foodoir" genre, blending recipes into stories and scenes from a life. It covers the connections she made in her early life... Continue Reading →
How Cooking Made Living Seem Possible
Book review: Midnight Chicken, by Ella Risbridger (Amazon / Book Depository) There is a German word, kummerspeck, that translates literally as 'grief-bacon,' and metaphorically as 'comfort eating'. This book is the grief-bacon book...This is the book I wanted to read when I was sad, but it's also a book for good days. I'm not going... Continue Reading →
Vignettes Both Light and Dark from a Food Writer’s Childhood
Book review: Toast, by Nigel Slater (Amazon / Book Depository) “If you really want to, dear,’ was my mother’s answer for anything I wanted to do that she would rather I didn’t. This was her stock answer to my question: Can I make a fruit sundae? By make I meant assemble. My fruit sundae was... Continue Reading →
Health and Cultural Effects of the Global “Food Revolution”
The Way We Eat Now, by Bee Wilson (Amazon / Book Depository) Talking about what has gone wrong with modern eating is delicate, because food is a touchy subject. No one likes to feel judged about their food choices, which is one of the reasons why so many healthy eating initiatives fail. The foods that are... Continue Reading →
American Identity As Seen Through Food
Book review: Fed, White, and Blue, by Simon Majumdar (Amazon / Book Depository) Food writer and "food expert," whatever that means, Simon Majumdar relocated from his beloved England to Los Angeles to be with his girlfriend. Some time after their marriage, he was faced with the decision of becoming a US citizen. This unleashes a... Continue Reading →
“A Young Black Chef” Finds His Place in Fine Dining
Book review: Notes from a Young Black Chef, by Kwame Onwuachi with Joshua David Stein (Amazon / Book Depository) A groove had formed in the linoleum in front of the stove where Mom spent hours cooking. Next to that were four indentations from the little wooden step stool on which I often stood to watch... Continue Reading →
Culinary and Travel Stories, from Al Dente to Zucchini Blossoms
Book review: The Bread and the Knife, by Dawn Drzal (Amazon / Book Depository) Former cookbook editor Dawn Drzal's memoir is structured around 26 dishes or ingredients of significance in her life, matched up to the letters of the alphabet. Although the alphabet theme is a bit gimmicky, the writing is anything but. Drzal draws... Continue Reading →
Worldly Writing from the Kitchen to Machu Picchu, and All the Life Lived in Between
Book review: Eat, Live, Love, Die, by Betty Fussell Before she started writing, Betty Fussell, who's now over 90, was married to author Paul Fussell. Her marriage and family life, and the problems therein, became the subject of her memoir My Kitchen Wars, which also focused on her divorce and issues of domesticity. She'd started editing some... Continue Reading →