As previously evidenced, I really love Anthony Bourdain. I think he’s an excellent TV personality, a good writer, and by all accounts a decent cook. I read his books out of order, but that didn’t seem to take away from anything. Kitchen Confidential was everything I wanted it to be. Straight-forward (as much as any memoir is, I suppose), lurid, profane, and yet somehow elegant. Bourdain has such a distinctive voice, be in in television or writing, and there’s no question of ghostwriters other autobiographies may raise. […]
Enthusiasm! Puns! Twenty-Something Life Advice!
(This post originally appeared on Persephone Magazine.) Though I admit to not being all that well-versed in “My Drunk Kitchen” the video series, I still wanted to see how Hannah Hart’s humor translated into book form. I might have aged out of some of this life advice, but her enthusiasm and love of puns still won me over. “[T]his book is about self-improvement and maybe it can improve itself as it goes along,” Hannah Hart writes in the introduction. “Has a cookbook ever been self-aware? […]
The Jewish immigrant experience in a delightful memoir
Although dubbed a novel, Up From Orchard Street is a memoir in the same way Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes was—honest, poignant, often painful, but filled with the sights, smells and sounds of the immigrant experience. Widmer’s story takes place in New York’s Lower East Side in the ‘30s, where many Eastern European Jews had settled in search of a new and hopefully better future in the U.S. Manya Roth, aka Bubby, is the indulgent mother of flashy womanizing smart-alecky Jack, her only child from a […]
A Portrait of the Artist as a Chef
Food is one of my favorite things in the world (but you all knew that). I love to cook it, to eat it, to read about it. So I was delighted that my book club decided on The Hundred-Foot Journey for our October selection. This also means that when we do meet, we’ll be eating a selection of Indian/French foods. YUM. The story itself is also tantalizing and delicious. Young Hassan Haji grows up in India where his parents run a successful restaurant, until tragedy […]
Confession: I like cheese. And cupcakes.
I love food. I like to talk about it, read about it, view it via cookbooks or shows, prepare it, and eat it. So I was highly intrigued by the Barnes and Noble display that featured David Sax’s The Tastemakers. Hmmmm, I thought. Just why are we so crazy about cupcakes and tired of fondue? (disclosure: I love a good fondue. Who doesn’t love a meal that consists of you dipping bread and fruit into gourmet melted cheese? Just saying) David Sax expertly explains food […]
If you’re at all familiar with Anthony Bourdain, you’ll know what you’re in for when you crack open this book. Biting humor, liberal cursing, and some of the most eloquent food porn I’ve ever read. I haven’t checked out any of his other books yet, so I was going in based on the public persona I’ve seen from TV (The Taste is my show, y’all.). I wasn’t surprised in the least that I loved and devoured this book. I’m never going to be anywhere need […]