It's odd that you have this impression given the details that you're describing about it.
My wife is quite the foodie (MFK Fisher being a fav too) and she loved this book.
Can't say I would be as intrigued to read it myself.

Speaking of Pepin, the last show Childs did with Pepin was sort of intriguing because they had very different ways of preparing things when it came to recipes and they really did get along in this strange sort of fashion even though they were clearly at odds on almost every single episode.

SOMB, displaying sudden Julia Childs fanatacism! Where do you get your French food in Chicago? I hear people say French cooking in America has declined in the last quarter century. Does the book address that?

I finally got around to reading the Communist Antifesto
it's fairly mediocre, and laughable

Oh, no!

No love for Long Way Down? It got mixed reviews, so I assume you're on the negative end of the spectrum.

this



and this



It seems like a majority of the artists that I enjoy have killed themselves.
Is there any correlation in suicides by the audience who enjoy the suicide authors?

Are there any good SOMBIE-approved books that tackle the suicide problem?

Started on the train this morning. Pretty gross, but fascinating.

Currently reading the new McSweeney's:

When did you get yours?

Just started:



Yeah, I know. But I felt like something light and breezy after Haunted.

I want to say about a week and a half ago?

I don't think he's a total idiot or anything but I hardly see what's wrong with making a little jab at the enthusiasm that greets his works. Or are we supposed to like every freaking thing that comes down the line or be labeled a snob?

Plus, dude has the worst ideas about music. They're potentially cancerous.

A little ironic, because this is the most angst-ridden chapter of the HP series.

Started on the train this morning. Pretty gross, but fascinating.

That is a great read. I picked it up because I work with cadavers every month or so. I wish it would have went into more of the medicinal use of the "stiffs".

I only made it through the second chapter. My wife read the entire thing and really enjoyed it, but she warned me that I would get groosed out, and she was right.

Plus, dude has the worst ideas about music. They're potentially cancerous.

Cadavers aren't for everyone. There is no "I'll get used to it" phase. One can either handle it, or puke.

Cadavers aren't for everyone. There is no "I'll get used to it" phase. One can either handle it, or puke.

He digs Songs From Northern Britain. That's good enough for me.

Freddie Freelance, held, and Ox, I think you guys would enjoy this:



Got this as a birthday gift last night, and dove in this morning on my commute.

So far it is a real joy.

As much as I've loved The Man in the High Castle, I'm guessing that finishing it will have to wait until I'm done with Heat.

I almost bought this the other day; I've got this on hold at the library so I will wait. I was hoping it's good.

Heat is a remarkable work on a number of fronts--and for a number of reasons. First, watching the author, an untrained, inexperienced and middle-aged desk jockey slowly transform into not just a useful line cook--but an extraordinarily knowledgable one is pure pleasure. That he chooses to do so primarily in the notoriously difficult, cramped kitchens of New York's three star Babbo provides further sado-masochistic fun. Buford not only accurately and hilariously describes the painfully acquired techniques of the professional cook (and his own humiliations), but chronicles as well the mental changes--the "kitchen awareness" and peculiar world view necessary to the kitchen dweller. By end of book, he's even talking like a line cook.

Secondly, the book is a long overdue portrait of the real Mario Batali and of the real Marco Pierre White--two complicated and brilliant chefs whose coverage in the press--while appropriately fawning--has never described them in their fully debauched, delightful glory. Buford has--for the first time--managed to explain White's peculiar--almost freakish brilliance--while humanizing a man known for terrorizing cooks, customers (and Batali). As for Mario--he is finally revealed for the Falstaffian, larger than life, mercurial, frighteningly intelligent chef/enterpreneur he really is. No small accomplishment. Other cooks, chefs, butchers, artisans and restaurant lifers are described with similar insight.

Thirdly, Heat reveals a dead-on understanding--rare among non-chef writers--of the pleasures of "making" food; the real human cost, the real requirements and the real adrenelin-rush-inducing pleasures of cranking out hundreds of high quality meals. One is left with a truly unique appreciation of not only what is truly good about food--but as importantly, who cooks--and why. I can't think of another book which takes such an unsparing, uncompromising and ultimately thrilling look at the quest for culinary excellence. Heat brims with fascinating observations on cooking, incredible characters, useful discourse and argument-ending arcania. I read my copy and immediately started reading it again. It's going right in between Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London and Zola's The Belly of Paris on my bookshelf.

In a more technical vein, I strongly recommend the following:


It's a bit of a tome, but facinating. Nancy Nestle is a nutritionist, who's done a very careful survey of most of the products you find in the supermarket-- she then breaks down the products, and illustrates how they're put together, usually at the expense of real nutrtion to satisfy a market need.

I love all the foodie talk!

Just bought it.