What are you reading these days?

[Wilfrid]

Albert Stevens Crockett, Old Waldorf Bar Days.

[Ron Johnson]

I just finished "Comfort me with Apples" by Reichl. (It was a remainder for $2.98 hardcover).

It is recipes interspersed with fairly well-written narratives describing the different men with whom she had affairs while married to a sculptor. In retrospect the title takes on an entirely new meaning . . .

[bourdain]

When You Lunch With The Emperor--the adventures of Ludwig Bemelmans ..in ms. More inspired madness from the original bad boy of the NY restaurant/hospitality underbelly

[fimbul]

Dona Flor and her Two Husbands by Jorge Amado. It's a novel about a woman who loses a husband, remarries, and, through divine intervention, brings back the first husband to obtain, er, well, the best of both worlds.

I'm liking the book immensely, though I'm struggling with it a tad. It seems I only get to read, these days, just before I fall asleep, so I read a chapter, go to sleep, and the next night I have to reread the previous night's chapter to remind myself what happened. The author's style is to weave past in with present, so being sleep-addled can get you lost if you're not well-rooted in context.

But, no matter, it's a good story, and the slightly dated translation keeps me grinning at all the anachronistic, "hip" slang.

It's even food related: the protagonist of the novel is a cooking-school teacher. Dende oil anyone?

[helenas]

Dona Flor and her Two Husbands by Jorge Amado. 

Wow, i've read this book, like twenty years ago; it was such a fun! Jorge Amado was hugely popular back in Russia, as well as other latin authors...

[wingding]

'Gypsy',the autobiography of Gypsy Rose Lee...what a life,and a point in time in N.Y. entertainment history[great pictures too!]no one but Ethel Merman could ever have played the part of her mother..what a piece of work!and I found another great Time Life Good Cook book'Beverages'-all kinds if interesting stuff.

[Liza]

"Hooking Up", Tom Wolfe.

[Lord Michael Lewis]

Gearheads.

[Vanessa]

Currently "Russian Cuisine in Exile", because "...All sorts of threads can bind someone to his homeland-- a great culture, a mighty people, a glorious past.  But the strongest thread goes from the homeland to the soul.  That is, to the stomach..."

Helena - can you give more details on this book - it is new to me. Thanks

v

[alacarte]

What a literate bunch! Who knew there was such a huge food-related canon.

Color me lowbrow: I'm reading Everything You Pretend To Know About Food And Are Afraid Someone Will Ask by Nancy Rommelmann.

[g.johnson]

The Cold Six Thousand. Ellroy gets more austerely incomprehensible by the book, and his characters are little more than a compilation of the same few ticks, but he's reinvented the hard-boiled* detective novel and I love 'em.

Edit: *Mandatory food reference.

Edited April 10, 2003 by g.johnson (log)

[awbrig]

Tony Parsons' Man and Boy

[Lord Michael Lewis]

The Cold Six Thousand. Ellroy gets more austerely incomprehensible by the book, and his characters are little more than a compilation of the same few ticks, but he's reinvented the hard-boiled* detective novel and I love 'em.

Edit: *Mandatory food reference.

Yes, yes! He's turning into James Joyce.

Edited April 10, 2003 by Lord Michael Lewis (log)

[Stone]

Gearheads.

You're a freak.

[g.johnson]

The Cold Six Thousand. Ellroy gets more austerely incomprehensible by the book, and his characters are little more than a compilation of the same few ticks, but he's reinvented the hard-boiled* detective novel and I love 'em.

Edit: *Mandatory food reference.

Yes, yes! He's turning into James Joyce.

More Beckett, I think.

[Lord Michael Lewis]

Gearheads.

You're a freak.

Have you read the synopsis?

[Wilfrid]

Oh, broader but still food related? Faulkner, As I Lay Dying - how to clean fish; Roy Campbell's poetry - lots of African game; Octavio Paz's poetry - tacos, somewhere, probably; and Sorel, Reflexions sur la Violence - French.

[Stone]

Gearheads.

You're a freak.

Have you read the synopsis?

Didn't have to, I knew who it was about. That's why you're a freak. (I mean that in a good way.)

[indiagirl]

Food : A culinary history - Jean Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari

Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond

Fabulos French Food - James Peterson (don't tell Plotnicki)

A Cook's Tour - Anthony Bourdain

Last book I finished

Family Matters - Rohinton Mistry

[NeroW]

Unfortunately not much lately besides eGullet.

However, I have been obsessively reading ingredient lists for the past few weeks. I like to sneak into people's cupboards and read their food. The other night at a friend's house, I noticed that he had Potted Meat Product, and the first ingredient was "mechanically separated chicken." He tried to tell me I'd brought the Potted Meat Product over, but I had to set him straight. The olives I am eating right now have olives, red wine, vinegar, grapemust, and sea salt.

Why this interests me, I do not know.

Tonight I will be reading through the new Vanity Fair.

[Sandra Levine]

Cultivating Delight A Natural Historyof My Garden, by Diane Ackerman

Venice Lion City by Garry Wills

[maggiethecat]

"Zuleika Dobson", Max Beerbohm

"Maigret Goes Home", Simenon

"What's a Girl Gotta Do?" Sparkle Hayter

"Spring Essence" Ho Xuan Huong

[hjshorter]

Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond

What a terrific book! I have read it twice and could stand to read it again.

Homeschooling for Dummies

Rereading Much Depends on Dinner Margaret Visser

I Have Landed Stephen Jay Gould

Thai Food David Thompson

[g.johnson]

Stephen Jay Gould may write well but he's unreliable on evolution.

[hjshorter]

Stephen Jay Gould may write well but he's unreliable on evolution.

He is unreliable but always entertaining. I went through a Punctuated Equilibrium phase, then cooled on it. Not sure what hot evolutionary trend to follow now.

I'd like to read The Structure of Evolutionary Theory but fear I'll have to stick to essays until my youngest goes to school.