Essays Books - Page 17

Last Chance to Eat: The Fate of Taste in a Fast Food World

Gina Mallet

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Left, Right, and Center-Cut 3 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Attempting to get a book published under the banner "people don't eat right"--even with great gobs of anecdotal evidence--would probably elicit little enthusiasm from potential publishers. Who wants to be scolded, especially about all those Big Macs you're tucking away? Ah, but wrap this theme around a weighty political or social commentary theme--say, people don't even know what food *tastes* like anymore and evil forces are conspiring to keep it that way--and you might have something to sink your teeth into. Consciously or not, Gina Mallet is in a scolding mood in "Last Chance to Eat" and while I appreciated her broadsides against food hypocrisy the barely-concealed "you people don't know what's good for you" tone was often hard to, well, stomach.

This perspective sours, for me, an otherwise superb extended essay on good, basic food and why we love it. The author is at her lamenting best when skewering nonsensical food regulation; the bit on a chapter dedicated to eggs (`The Imperiled Egg') displays in naked terms how the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other bureaucratic dimwits drove the egg market to the point of extinction--for absolutely no scientific reason. This expose comes after a long paean to eggs in history, how gourmands from Escoffier to Julie Child have feted them, how wonderfully nutritious they are (eaten *properly*, of course), and segueing into their ill-deserved bad rap. Ms. Mallet's equally loving descriptions of beef, fish, cheese, and produce clearly show her love of The Real Deal; it's when she starts tut-tutting what's happened to the apparently glorious near-past of cuisine that she loses me.

Simply put, Mallet's gripes against her imagined food villains--the FDA excepted--hold little water (primary source references and research--not to mention footnotes--are nowhere to be found) and undercut the backside of her argument: that good food and "taste" are imperiled in our fast food/agri-business-dominated culinary wasteland. That a huge food conglomerate may strive to extend irrational bans on unpasteurized cheese, for example, might be no surprise. But to rely on "my friend Guy" as an authority (hey, he lives in *Paris*!) on the evils of big food business doesn't pump me with confidence. (For good measure we find Guy's politics are hardly confined to the food business: the cheese chapter culminates with a bizarre non-sequitor that importing can't be more diverse because according to him "this is all about trade." I've heard plenty of unsupported anti-trade arguments but this reaches a new low.)

The author uses a family narrative context--interspersed with interesting recipes--to present her arguments. This works reasonably well, though the uniqueness of her youthful experiences (daughter of a director of luxury hotels!) makes cozying up to her culinary perspective a bit difficult at times. Harder to swallow is the relentless "Philistine America steamrolling Noble France" subtext that I hope will even bore the French before too much longer.

Given how politically charged all our lives have become--from what we drive to what toilet paper we use--I appreciated Gina Mallet's attempt to stake out the high ground on food. (I like to think it's mine too.) When she stays optimistic--relating family stories, history, and her clear love of good food--I found her book very enjoyable and even inspiring. It's most of her pessimistic side--especially some very ill-informed economic rants--that drag down an otherwise intriguing effort.

Editorial Review:

Drawing on enough culinary experiences to fill several lifetimes, Mallet's irreverent memoir combines recollections of meals and their milieus with recipes and tasting tips.

Irrepressible Appetites

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Many of our earliest memories center around food and eating. Family stories, histories of relationships and the negotiations of the heart often revolve around rituals of breaking bread. In this eclectic collection, there is a diverse group of voices, each exploring how food influences and shapes our lives. From backyard cocktail parties to flirting with a stranger in the vegetable aisle at the grocery store, from acquaintances sharing coffee and casual conversation at a diner’s counter to lovers mixing the tastes of the mouth with the pleasures of the body, each piece brings a fresh look at the central role food plays in the rhythm of our days.

This superb anthology reminds us of what we’ve known all along: that both kitchen and bookshelf are for the feeding of body and spirit.

This literary collection includes writings from the award winning authors Lynne Barrett, John Dufresne, Denise Duhamel, Les Standiford, and Dan Wakefield, plus an additional 31 contributors.

Garlic Is Life: A Memoir With Recipes

Chester Aaron

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

The title says it all. 4 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

This is an autobiographical slice of Chester Aaron's life as he waas intoduced to garlic growing and became a garlic devotee. Aaron and his cat take the reader into the world of garlic,its many varities, and how to best grow these bulbs of life. At the end of the book are thirty recipes for tasty garlic dishes. It is a very readable primer on garlic growing.

Great book 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I have had the pleasure of interviewing Chester on my gardening show on a couple of occassions and found him charming, enlightening and certainly passionate about his garlic. I was thouroughly pleased when I found the book to be an extension of his interviews. This man at 80 something is more full of life than most twenty year olds and he exudes this energy and love of life into print in a way that makes you feel that you are in the field talking with him rather than reading a book. The recipies were devine. An absolute must for the Garlic aficionado.

Editorial Review:

The California garlic farmer and supplier describes how he become increasing involved in the gourmet garlic business, and offers recipes featuring the herb.

The Amateur Gourmet

Adam D. Roberts

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Editorial Review:

Self-taught chef and creator of the Amateur Gourmet website, Adam Roberts has written the ultimate “Kitchen 101” for anyone who’s ever wanted to enjoy the rewards of good eating without risking burning down the house! In this deliciously illuminating and hilarious new kitchen companion, Roberts has assembled a five-star lineup of some of the food world’s most eminent authorities. The result is a culinary education like no other.

Learn the “Ten Commandments of Dining Out” courtesy of Ruth Reichl, editor in chief of Gourmet magazine. Discover why the New York Times’s Amanda Hesser urges you never to bring a grocery list to the market. Get knife lessons from a top sous-chef at Manhattan’s famous Union Square Cafe, and much more. Packed with recipes, menu plans, shopping tips, and anecdotes, The Amateur Gourmet provides you with all the ingredients to savor the foodie lifestyle. All you need to add is a healthy appetite and a taste for adventure.

Van Gogh's Table: At the Auberge Ravoux

Alexandra Leaf, Fred Leeman

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

At the Auberge Ravoux, in a tiny artists’ village twenty miles from Paris, Vincent Van Gogh found a measure of peace in his ill-starred life—and experienced an unparalleled burst of creativity, producing seventy masterpieces and studies. The Auberge still operates today as the Maison de Van Gogh. Little has changed since Van Gogh first set down his bags more than a century ago, and visitors are still treated to the comforting, delicious regional cuisine that he would have dined upon.

Here is a stirring view into Van Gogh’s world, as intimate as sharing poulet and pommes sautées with the artist himself. Written by the former Chief Curator of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam with one of America’s foremost culinary authorities, this unique cookbook/art book explores the role of the café in Van Gogh’s life. Includes more than 50 traditional recipes, ranging from hearty to refined, and 100 photographs, paintings, sketches, engravings, and letters, some never before seen in book form.

The Amateur Gourmet: How to Shop, Chop, and Table Hop Like a Pro (Almost)

Adam D. Roberts

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

As a self-taught chef and creator of The Amateur Gourmet website, Adam Roberts knows the challenges you face in bringing fresh, creative homemade meals to the table without burning down the house or bruising your self-esteem. But as he shows in this exciting new book, the effort is worth it and good eating doesn’t have to be difficult. To prove his point, Roberts has assembled a five-star lineup of some of the food world’s most eminent authorities for your culinary education.
In this illuminating and hilarious “Kitchen 101,” Adam Roberts teaches you how to bring good food into your life. Learn the “Ten Commandments of Dining Out” courtesy of Ruth Reichl, editor in chief of Gourmet magazine. Discover why the New York Times’s Amanda Hesser urges you never to bring a grocery list to the market. Get knife lessons from a top sous-chef at Manhattan’s famous Union Square Cafe, and accompany the intrepid author as he dines alone at L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Paris.

From how to chop an onion to how to cook a seven-course meal that dazzles your friends, Roberts shares the skills you need to overcome your food phobias, impress your parents, woo a date, and create sophisticated dishes with everyday ease.

Packed with recipes, menus plans, shopping tips, and anecdotes, The Amateur Gourmet provides you with all the ingredients for the foodie lifestyle. All you need is a healthy appetite and a taste for adventure!

Ray's Boathouse: Seafood Secrets of the Pacific Northwest

Ken Gouldthorpe, Charles Ramseyer, Ray's Boathouse

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Ray's Boathouse: Seafood Secrets of the Pacific Northwest 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 10 people found this review helpful.

Anyone who has had the opportunity to enjoy's Ray's Boathouse in Seattle knows what delicious food they serve! I was so excited to find that they had made a cookbook so that I could enjoy some of their dishes at home as well. From Dungeness Crab Cakes with Orange Tarragon Butter Sauce to Yakima Peach & Blackberry Crisp you will find making these Northwest treats easy and delicious for even the novice cook. The variety of seafood in the cookbook allows the rest of the country to experience the Northwest no matter where they live.

Editorial Review:

It's a local legend sitting just feet above the waters of Puget Sound on Seattle's Shilshole Bay. The view is outstanding, the Café bustling and audacious, and the restaurant elegant with a down home attitude. Simply put, it’s one of the best cold-water seafood restaurants in the world, and the locals call it Ray’s.

Ray’s Boathouse: Seafood Secrets from the Pacific Northwest includes everything from appetizers featured in Ray’s Café, like the Seafood Margarita, to tips for buying and cooking perfect salmon. With an introduction by international food writer Ken Gouldthorpe, it contains over 100 recipes for preparing and serving Ray’s best cuisine at home, all triple-tested by Executive Chef Charles Ramseyer and the Ray’s staff. A visual knockout with stunning food photography by Angie Norwood Browne, this highly anticipated cookbook offers an inspiring collection of recipes for cooks who love seafood.

Cornbread Nation 4: The Best of Southern Food Writing (Cornbread Nation: Best of Southern Food Writing)

Contributors

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This new collection in the Southern Foodways Alliance's popular series serves up a fifty-three-course celebration of southern foods, southern cooking, and the people and traditions behind them. Editors Dale Volberg Reed and John Shelton Reed have combed magazines, newspapers, books, and journals to bring us a "best of" gathering that is certain to satisfy everyone from omnivorous chowhounds to the most discerning student of regional foodways.

After an opening celebration of the joys of spring in her natal Virginia by the redoubtable Edna Lewis, the Reeds organize their collection under eight sections exploring Louisiana and the Gulf Coast before and after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the food and farming of the Carolina Lowcountry, "Sweet Things," southern snacks and fast foods,
"Downhome Food," "Downhome Places," and a comparison of southern foods with those of other cultures.

In his "This Isn't the Last Dance," Rick Bragg recounts his experience, many years ago, of a New Orleans jazz funeral and finds hope therein that the unique spirit of New Orleanians will allow them to survive: "I have seen these people dance, laughing, to the edge of a grave. I believe that, now, they will dance back from it." "My passport may be stamped Yankee," writes Jessica B. Harris in her "Living North/Eating South," "but there's no denying that my stomach and culinary soul and those of many others like me are pure Dixie." In her "Tough Enough: The Muscadine Grape," Simone Wilson explains that the lowly southern fruit has double the heart-healthy resveratrol of French grapes, thus offering the hope of a "southern paradox." The title of Candice Dyer's brief history says it all: "Scattered, Smothered, Covered, and Chunked: Fifty Years of the Waffle House." In a photo essay, documentarian Amy Evans shows us the world of oystering along northwest Florida's Apalachicola Bay, and for the first time in the series, recipes are given-for a roux, braised collard greens, doberge cake, and other dishes.

I'll Drink to That: Beaujolais and the French Peasant Who Made It the World's Most Popular Wine

Rudolph Chelminski

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The remarkable saga of the wine and people of Beaujolais and Georges Duboeuf, the peasant lad who brought both world recognition.

Every third week of November, wine shops around the world announce “Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé” and in a few short weeks, over seven million bottles are sold and drunk. Although often scorned by the wine world’s snob set, the annual delivery of each year’s new Beaujolais wine brings a welcome ray of sunshine to a morose November from New York to Tokyo. The surprising Cinderella tale behind the success of Beaujolais Nouveau captures not just the story of a wine but also the history of a fascinating region. At the heart of this fairy tale is the peasant wine grower named Georges Duboeuf, whose rise as the undisputed king of Beaujolais reads like a combination of suspenseful biography and luscious armchair travel.

I’ll Drink to That transports us to the unique corner of France where medieval history still echoes and where the smallholder peasants who made Beaujolais wines on their farms battled against the contempt of the entrenched Burgundy and Bordeaux establishment. With two bottles of wine in his bike’s saddlebag, young Duboeuf set out to revolutionize the stodgy wine business, becoming the richest and most famous individual wine dealer in France. But this is more than one man’s success story. As The Perfectionist used Bernard Loiseau to tell the layered history of French haute cuisine, here Chelminski uses Duboeuf’s story to paint the portrait of the often endearing, sometimes maddening but always interesting inhabitants of a little-known corner of France, offering at the same time a witty, panoramic view of the history of French winemaking.

Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto

Victoria Abbott Riccardi

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Two years out of college and with a degree from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, Victoria Riccardi left a boyfriend, a rent-controlled New York City apartment, and a plum job in advertising to move to Kyoto to study kaiseki, the exquisitely refined form of cooking that accompanies the formal Japanese tea ceremony. She arrived in Kyoto, a city she had dreamed about but never seen, with two bags, an open-ended plane ticket, and the ability to speak only sushi-bar Japanese. She left a year later, having learned the language, the art of kaiseki, and what was truly important to her.

Through special introductions and personal favors, Victoria was able to attend one of Kyoto’s most prestigious tea schools, where this ago-old Japanese art has been preserved for generations and where she was taken under the wing of an American expatriate who became her mentor in the highly choreographed rituals of this extraordinary culinary discipline.

During her year in Kyoto, Victoria explored the mysterious and rarefied world of tea kaiseki, living a life inaccessible to most foreigners. She also discovered the beguiling realm of modern-day Japanese food—the restaurants, specialty shops, and supermarkets. She participated in many fast-disappearing culinary customs, including making mochi (chewy rice cakes) by hand, a beloved family ritual barely surviving in a mechanized age. She celebrated the annual cleansing rites of New Year’s, donning an elaborate kimono and obi for a thirty-four-course extravaganza. She includes twenty-five recipes for favorite dishes she encountered, such as Chicken and Egg Rice Bowl, Japanese Beef and Vegetable Hotpot, and Green-Tea Cooked Salmon Over Rice.

Untangling My Chopsticks is a sumptuous journey into the tastes, traditions, and exotic undercurrents of Japan. It is also a coming-of-age tale steeped in history and ancient customs, a thoughtful meditation on life, love, and learning in another land.