Blogs

Eating their Words

I'm sure I'll write more about my cookbooks. I have too many by my count, but I know that people own far more cookbooks than me. And I'd have more cookbooks than I do if I didn't live in a very small Brooklyn apartment. I'm out of space for more unless I put up some shelves! It's a little odd that it's so important to me that all of my cookbooks live in my kitchen. as the other rooms aren't very far away, but that's the way it is. I also like to keep all of my "food writing" in with the cookbooks, though not all of these books have recipes in them. I didn't read much that would qualify as food writing until one Thanksgiving a few years ago when I picked up Ruth Reichl's Comfort Me With Apples at my mother-in-law's house. I had to read it quickly so that I would finish it before I returned home after the holiday, but it was lovely! I enjoyed that and Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain so much I kept exploring the genre. Here's what I've been reading since: 1. Julie and Julia by Julie Powell. I related to this author, as she is around my age and lived not far from where I live. I felt her pre-midlife-crisis angst personally! This book made a nice counterpoint to: 2. Toast by Nigel Slater because both books interweave a sort of sexual awareness along with the discovery of food and flavor. Toast felt more literary, though, as opposed to the flatter blog-come-to-book-form Julie (no offense, Julie!). 3. Hotel Bemelmans by Ludwig Bemelmans (yes, the one who wrote and illustrated Madeline!) is an entertaining look at the New York hotel industry in the 20s and 30s, but I felt having Anthony Bourdain write the introduction was a bit pushing it. I don't need the book's author put into modern perspective as "the original bad boy" to bite. 4/5. The Man Who Ate Everything and It Must Have Been Something I Ate by Jeffrey Steingarten are collections of articles on various foodie topics, and I enjoyed reading them, but they also feel a little elitest and the humor I felt was lurking didn't always come through cleanly. I don't think Steingarten would do much more than sniff and nod at my culinary dabblings, but that's okay. There's some dated food science information in here, as some of the articles were written 10 or more years ago, but I love the author's suspicion of picky eaters and lactose intolerance. Next up? I'm going back to Bourdain. I picked up A Cook's Tour in the hopes it would inspire me to higher levels of gastronomic adventure. Please share your favorite food writing/memoirs in the comments. I'd love to put more on my list!