This is huge: Lucy Knisley made me mushroom curious. Me. A lifelong hater of all things fungal. I always imagine them as something slick and slug-like, tasting of moldy earth. My mom would take a…
Posts tagged food memoir
Bare bones
Gabrielle Hamilton’s food memoir Blood, Bones & Butter is a bit of a sleeper. It starts with pleasant and wholesome childhood memories in a big old house on plenty of acreage, parked under mother’s chin…
‘Medium Raw’ not so well done
Food writers, especially good ones, are at such an advantage. They have every sense available to them, and if they know what they are doing, they have the opportunity to make a reader cavort and…
Hella Good Cooking
Minneapolis's own Hell's Kitchen is no relation to the television show of same name but it is just as intense, and reading the story behind its success is even better than watching Chef Ramsay yell….
Diary of an American in Italy
Never Trust a Thin Cook is best described as an epicurious travelogue. It focuses more on the joy of food and cooking traditions than on specific recipes. Essentially, it is a diary of an American…
How it all started in the kitchen
“Chefs are the new rock stars” is a catchphrase that gains momentum every time Andrew Zimmern plugs his mouth with an obscure, barely dead mollusk or the broiled sex organs of an animal unique to…
Star power
Frank Bruni was a looming presence in a book published in 2007 chronicling the Manhattan restaurant Per Se’s hopes for a four-star review from the New York Times tough-ass food critic. The writer, Phoebe Damrosch,…
Fanning the flambe
After reading food-memoir-Julia-Child-love-letter-turned-movie Julie & Julia by Julie Powell, I have two regrets: A) I wish I had come up with an idea like this. But not this one. I’m never going to eat liver,…
Palate almost-pleasing
In the 1990s, Ruth Reichl was courted by, and eventually became the food critic for the New York Times — albeit reluctantly. On her first tentative trip to the food capital of the world from…
Cereal monogamy
Typically when I read a book, I dog-ear pages with great sentences or ideas I like. With Giulia Melucci’s unfortunately-titled food memoir I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti, these notations were never about a…