Raw Dog by Jamie Loftus
I’m a big fan of Jamie Loftus’s work in the podcast sphere, so I’ve had a hold on the audio of RAW DOG since it came out. Finally it was my turn! Tragically, I had a weird download and some of the book was clipped out in the beginning. But I was too impatient to re-download and felt guilty hanging onto such a popular book for a long time. So I didn’t reread – it’s possible I missed some stuff. The book starts out with […]
Project X Challengers: Cup Noodle by Tadashi Katoh
Sadly this book is out of print and completely unavailable, which is a shame (the one copy I could find for sale is $87, so unless you’re so moved by my review that you’re willing to pay that, this is out of reach for most people). I luckily got this copy back when it first came out in 2006 and it’s a cult classic for me that I re-read every few years. Project X Challengers: Cup Noodle tells the dramatic story of how Cup Noodle was […]
The Cooking Gene by Michael Twitty
I have to admit up front that I did not completely finish The Cooking Gene; I had it from the library and ran out of renewals before I had to return it. This is not a fast read if you want to really get the content and the feeling. I don’t mean that the style is hard to read; on the contrary, it’s written in a pretty conversational way. What made it slower for me was the depth of what was being presented. This came […]
A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage
I need to clean off my coffee table. I remembered something from A History of the World in 6 Glasses, but then couldn’t find the book to confirm it. I figured maybe I’d finished it way earlier than I thought and had given it away. But no, it was just buried under stuff on the coffee table. Turns out, I hadn’t quite finished it either. The premise is a history of cultural development around the world as it connects to the general history of the […]
The 100 Most Jewish Foods by Alana Newhouse
I have had an interesting run with library books lately. I have been going in for one thing and often coming out with at least one thing I hadn’t planned on. This is not a complaint, but I have to wonder if my doppelganger in terms of reading tastes may have been recently hired on there. So, on to The 100 Most Jewish Foods: A Highly Debatable List. I am not Jewish, but I do have an interest in food writing and history. This book […]
Pastrami on Rye by Ted Merwin
Bingo 18 (Award Winner) In 2015, Ted Merwin’s Pastrami on Rye: An Overstuffed History of the Jewish Deli won the National Jewish Book Award, which is presented by the Jewish Book Council. I neither knew that nor would have cared if I had known when I bought the book, but it’s rather convenient for a Bingo Square. Basically, this book is as the subtitle suggests a social and cultural history of the Jewish deli in the United States starting in 1880sish NYC through nearly the […]
