The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears in Paris at the World's Most Famous Cooking School[Paperback]
Kathleen Flinn (Author)
From Publishers Weekly
The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears in Paris at the World's Most Famous Cooking School[Paperback]
Kathleen Flinn (Author)
From Publishers Weekly
Recently, within the newest social movements around food, milk has lost favor. Vegan anti-milk rhetoric portrays the dairy industry as cruel to animals and milk as bad for humans. Recently, books with titles like, "Milk: The Deadly Poison," and "Don't Drink Your Milk" have portrayed milk as toxic and unhealthy. Controversies over genetically-engineered cows and questions about antibiotic residue have also prompted consumers to question whether the milk they drink each day is truly good for them.
In Nature's Perfect Food Melanie Dupuis illuminates these questions by telling the story of how Americans came to drink milk. We learn how cow's milk, which was associated with bacteria and disease became a staple of the American diet. Along the way we encounter 19th century evangelists who were convinced that cow's milk was the perfect food with divine properties, brewers whose tainted cow feed poisoned the milk supply, and informal wetnursing networks that were destroyed with the onset of urbanization and industrialization. Informative and entertaining, Nature's Perfect Food will be the standard work on the history of milk.
Most of the cookbooks I admire, as well as many of the foods I love, are products of a place and of a way of life. Eating is a biological act, but it is also a cultural pursuit, and it is no surprise to me that "The Auberge of the Flowering Hearth" (1973), Roy Andries De Groot's monumental book, should be one of my favorites. De Groot (1910-1983), a masterly writer on food and wine, gives life to the world and food of a country inn high in the French Alps, beyond Grenoble, where he explores the lives and the seasons of the auberge and of the two remarkable women who own it. Nearly sightless since 1940, when he was injured during the blitz of London, De Groot brings together a highly visual account of a constantly changing montane valley and its products, exploring the natural world, the rich culinary traditions and the crisp but loving professionalism of the aubergistes. Although filled with recipes, this is not a cookbook as much as it is a book about experiencing food and the natural world — from streams and rain showers to rocks and soil to meadow herbs, wild garlic, country markets, fish of the mountain lakes, wines, cheeses, rustic kitchens, wood-burning hearths and the intense pride in terroir and tradition. It is a fine book, a remarkable array of feasts.
Review by Nach Waxman, owner of Kitchen Arts & Letters, a cookbook store in Manhattan.
(looks like plenty of used copies available on Amazon )
The Butcher and the Vegetarian: One Woman's Romp through a World of Men, Meat, and Moral Crisis
by Tara Austen Weaver
Publisher Comments
Growing up in a family that kept jars of bean sprouts on its windowsill before such things were desirable or hip, Tara Austen Weaver never thought she'd stray from vegetarianism. But as an adult, she found herself in poor health, and, having tried cures
by Susan Herrma Loomis
Publisher Comments
A bestselling cookbook author and journalist tells the delicious story of her expatriate life, raising a family, renovating a convent, and savoring the culinary bounty of one of Normandy's most picturesque towns
"Ruth Reichl's Garlic and Sapphires, an account of her years as restaurant critic of the New York Times, is simultaneously hilarious, refresing and poignant, altogether a five-star read in the light memoir category.
The hilarity comes from Reichl's penchant for donning elaborate disguises, the better to assure anonymity in assessing New York's most prominent eateries. These incognita excursions allow Reichl to skewer the pretensions and omissions of such well-known restaurants as Le Cirque and Tavern on the Green.
Garlic and Sapphires sets a refreshing tone due to Reichl's insistence on recognizing excellent dining in all of its venues, from humble ethnic restaurants to New York's most elegant establishments. Reichl's penchant for ferreting out little-known gems earns her the opprobrium of Bryan Miller, her predecessor as the Times's restaurant critic, and his supporters, all of whom charge Reichl with "letting down standards". But the many New Yorkers who experience life without expense account or trust fund appreciate her excursions to the wrong side of the tracks to identify dining delights.
Most important, Garlic and Sapphires provides a poignant look at what it is like to be too old, too unfashionable, or too poor to fully take part in the glories of the Big Apple. Reichl's disguises frequently place her in one or more these overlooked groups, and she provides a sensitive picture of what it is like to be marginalized-- not only by headwaiters at four-star dining establishments, but by society. One hopes that Reichl's tenure as Times restaurant critic made top restaurants more likely to treat all of their patrons with dignity and respect.
Garlic and Sapphires led me to develop the following advice for restaurant patrons:
--As Reichl notes, restaurant preferences are subjective. Go to the places you enjoy, rather than the places fashion dictates.
--Restaurants are there to serve you. If you are unhappy about food or service, speak up-- preferably to a manager, if your waiter or waitress hasn't dealt with the problem. Above all, don't be intimidated. If you need instruction on what fork to use or what wine to order, you should be able to ask without embarrassment.
--You are especially entitled to fine service and cooking in a top restaurant-- don't let the establishment off the hook. If you have arrived on time for your reservation (or called ahead to notify the restaurant if you are delayed) and behaved courteously, any lapses in food or service reflect a deficiency in the restaurant, not a deficiency in you.
--At least in the U.S., tips are discretionary. If you're not happy, reduce the tip accordingly. Feel free to advise your friends of the restaurant's shortcomings. And fortunately, you're not a critic who must return to give the establishment a fair chance. If you're not happy, you need never darken its doorstep again.
One final piece of advice-- if you enjoy books about the food world, read Garlic and Sapphires."