Friday Food Writers: Anthony Doerr
Four Seasons in Rome is novelist Anthony Doerr’s account of the year he spent in Rome (on a Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy–jealous, anyone?) with his wife and twin baby boys, trying to write a book, trying to learn Italian, and often, trying to figure out how to get food for his growing [...]
Friday Food Writers: EFB (aka me)
Well, the time has come. On this, the day after publication and the day of my first official EFB event (at Greenlight Books in Fort Greene, Brooklyn–come on by if you’re in the neighborhood!), I can’t resist giving you a little glimpse at EFB, the book, recipe included, here on Friday Food Writers. I’ve been [...]
The first critics have spoken!!
I’m not including an image with this post in order to leave space for the HUGE sigh of relief that accompanies this news. The first review of Eating for Beginners is just out and I couldn’t be more thrilled. It’s from Publisher’s Weekly, which says, among other things, that the book is “lowkey, generous and [...]
Food Issues (on the Gastronomica Reader)
Greetings. It’s been a while…But quick! Before you focus on that, let me distract you with my latest Paper Palate column in Bookforum! It’s about The Gastronomica Reader and food magazines both before and after the demise of Gourmet. Click! Read! Savor the fabulous photo of a fried egg! There is more to come soon, [...]
Friday Food Writers: John McPhee
Long before there was Kitchen Confidential, or Bill Buford in the kitchen at Babbo, or me in the kitchen at applewood, for that matter, there was John McPhee’s brilliant essay about a restaurant’s owner-chefs and its kitchen, “Brigade de Cuisine.” Looking back, this may be the essay that, when I I first read it some [...]
Friday Food Writers: Raymond Chandler
I know. Raymond Chandler? The closest I usually come to connecting him with food is the term “hard-boiled,” and in his context it never has to do with eggs. However, I am in the throes of a Chandler obsession thanks to a very good Christmas gift. When I’m not working or trying to convince The [...]
A happy new year
Happy 2010! My year got off to an exciting start when my editor emailed me yesterday to say that Eating for Beginners was just put on Publisher’s Weekly’s list of “10 Most Exciting Food Books of 2010″. Considering the fact that no one (aside from me, my agent, above-mentioned editor and a few select friends [...]
Brillat-Savarin, Guiltless Gourmet
My latest Paper Palate column is out, in print and online, in Bookforum. It’s about Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (okay, I confess: when I used him for a Friday Food writers a while back it was kind of cheating since I was actually dipping into The Physiology of Taste for the column. But it’s so good!). [...]
Friday Food Writers: F. Scott Fitzgerald
I’m in a sort of zany mood, so I’m looking beyond the usual suspects for today’s post. And who zanier, really, than Fitzgerald (at least in his Zelda/speakeasies/jazz age moments)? The below is taken from The Crack-Up, one of my absolute favorite books. First published in 1945, it’s a collection of fragments and miscellany and [...]
Friday Food Writers: Brillat-Savarin
An oldie but goodie today on the occasion of a new edition of Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin‘s The Physiology of Taste: Or, Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy, translated by M.F. K. Fisher and with a new introduction by Bill Buford, from Everyman’s Library. This book has never been out of print since it was first published in 1825, [...]
