morsels & sauces

In this  Cook Your Books  series, I have chosen 15 books to read in 2017 based on somewhat arbitrarily chosen categories. My theory (bogus it might turn out to be) is that all 15 of these books will somehow connect to food. And I plan to write about that food.  And it turns out that these entries are a sort of long-form blog-post. So settle in. This eleventh installment is a book set in Illinois . Oh, Desire. With a capital "D." There you are. Haunting around Chicago and New York (and their restaurants) in this old chestnut from the turn of the century. I picked up Sister Carrie   in the Chicago History Museum gift shop while I was wiling away some time before catching my plane from O'Hare back to San Francisco. I needed a book set in Illinois, and there was no way I was going to write about one of my most loathed books Augie March  (with apologies to my father-in-law, who is a big fan) or about the meat exposé  The Jungle  (a great book, but...

In this  Cook Your Books  series, I have chosen 15 books to read in 2017 based on somewhat arbitrarily chosen categories. My theory (bogus it might turn out to be) is that all 15 of these books will somehow connect to food. And I plan to write about that food.  It turns out that these entries are a sort of long-form blog-post. So settle in.  This  ninth  installment is  a book published in the 1970s . Aghem. I am not sure what possessed me to choose this book, given what we know about its source material. So John Gardner's wonderful little novel  Grendel  is a retelling of Beowulf  from the point of view of the beast. But here's the rub. The beast eats humans. Both in Beowulf  and in Grendel , and I should have known that. I knew that. I took "Beowulf to Dryden" in my first semester in college. I knew that. But I have promised myself I wouldn't preview books to ensure that they have a connection to food (that would sort of r...

In a last hurrah to summer and, perhaps, even to the fall, I present to you this lovely tomato tarte tatin. And I wistfully bid farewell to tomatoes, or at least good ones, until next July. In the meantime, let's just drink Pimms Cups with cucumbers (probably from the hothouse) with good friends, cook from fun cookbooks, and settle in for the winter. This little inspiration comes from my latest acquisition, The Cottage Kitchen cookbook from Marte Marie Forsberg . Forsberg is one hell of a photographer (seriously, if you didn't click on her link in the previous sentence, do so now.  I'll wait.)--her images are lush and abundant and inviting and casual and snug--something like a Dutch Renaissance painting. Oh, I want to visit her cottage in England. I want her to make me dinner. I want her to photograph said dinner. Sigh . Her cookbook is equally lush. And it gives the air of casualness, but I am not going to lie to you. It is extravagant. I want to eat Foie...

In this  Cook Your Books  series, I have chosen 15 books to read in 2017 based on somewhat arbitrarily chosen categories. My theory (bogus it might turn out to be) is that all 15 of these books will somehow connect to food. And I plan to write about that food.  And it turns out that these entries are a sort of long-form blog-post. So settle in. This seventh installment is a book published in 1917 . Where there is a fallen woman, there is usually an apple.  Even for the venerable Edith Wharton. In Wharton's little novel  Summer , published exactly 100 years ago, Wharton likes to talk about eating. A lot. She is not particular about the food, itself. But eating--well, eating and its environs take center stage. Eating becomes a place of transaction.  And apples, both in their pie and in their unsliced, unsugared, and unbaked forms, show up a lot .  But then again, we've got a fallen woman, the Fourth of July, and New England. Seems just about ri...