What are you reading these days?

[Xanthippe]

On topic:

The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, Judy Rogers

How to Cook a Tart, Nina Killham (based on a back-of-the-book "endorsement" by no less of an authority than the redoubtable A. Bourdain, who sez of the novel: "How to Cook a Tart is gastro-porn, as if Julia Child and William Burroughs has a bastard child.")

Off-topic:

The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, edited and translated by Stephen Mitchell

Theodore Rex, Edmund Morris (Book II in the Pulitzer Prize winning trilogy)

[Sandra Levine]

Theodore Rex, Edmund Morris (Book II in the Pulitzer Prize winning trilogy)

Just finished Vol. 1, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, a great biography of a man I like a lot more before I read the book. I'm looking forward to Theordore Rex."

[torakris]

yesterday I pulled off the shelf

'Unleashing the Sex Goddess in Every Woman' by Olivia St.Claire (author of 203 ways to Drive a Man Wild in Bed-- have that one too )

Why didn't someone bring this topic back up last week then I was reading

'The New York Public Library Desk Reference'

Honest!

[newguy]

I'm back to becoming a Chef again, for the 2nd time. Also half way through Fast Food Nation.

[Chef/Writer Spencer]

what matters most is how well you walk through the fire...c. bukowski

the guy should have been a chef.

Edited April 12, 2003 by Chef/Writer Spencer (log)

[Blondie]

Gearheads.

I'm reading this right now. It's much more interesting than I would have imagined.

[nerissa]

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris.

and Atonement by Ian McEwan

also, rereading occasional chapters from Paris To The Moon by Adam Gopnik

Any scent hounds out there know of any new cookbooks coming out? I have memorized the titles and locations of the cookbooks at my local.

[awbrig]

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

I just bought this for Allison....

[snowangel]

Gardening books, seed and plant catalogues.

Peter (age 7) is reading me Harry Potter (outloud; we're on #4) and Nate the Great.

Awbrig, Emory would probably really like Nate the Great.

[Rhea_S]

Aside from a newish addiction to the laugh-out-loud funny Evanovich Stephanie Plum series, I've recently read the Zuni Cafe Cookbook and Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections. I enjoyed Zuni Cafe; the same cannot be said for Corrections. The book has its moments, but it reminded me of a soap opera narrated in a condescending tone. I continued reading each page straight to the end in hope of finding the supposed wit and humour I read about in glowing reviews. Instead, the book made me feel thoroughly depressed.

[tsquare]

"Baltasar and Blimunda" by Jose Saramago. Lots of interesting talk about 18th century Lisbon, including food and scandals.

[nerissa]

Aside from a newish addiction to the laugh-out-loud funny Evanovich Stephanie Plum series, I've recently read the Zuni Cafe Cookbook and Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections. I enjoyed Zuni Cafe; the same cannot be said for Corrections. The book has its moments, but it reminded me of a soap opera narrated in a condescending tone. I continued reading each page straight to the end in hope of finding the supposed wit and humour I read about in glowing reviews. Instead, the book made me feel thoroughly depressed.

Rhea,

I loved The Corrections. I actually found it funnier the 2nd time around. Each to his own, I suppose. I thought that Franzen really captured the Midwest well.

Did you enjoy the foodie bits---the character Denise and her musings about dishes? That restaurant sound fantastic...and the garden coop that her lover did (I forget her name)....

[Rhea_S]

Maybe I'll trying reading it a second time. I do think he captured the essence of the midwest rather well, but I didn't enjoy the book as a whole. The foodie bits were good enough for me to wish that he had spent more time on the professional side of the Denise character and less on rolling around in the garden coop.

[Fresser]

Oy, have I got a book for you...

Haikus for Jews. This book is hysterical!

If you need further encouragement, view it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/060...8539244-2149757 or see their website at http://www.extremely.com.

And now, to make it all relevant, a Jewish haiku about (what else?) food:

In the ice sculpture,

Reflected Bar Mitzvah guests

Nosh on chopped liver.

[torakris]

Last night I pulled off the shelf:

The Young Housekeeper's Friend by Mrs. Cornelius, the revised edition published in 1859.

My Grandmother just passed this down to me and it is very interesting reading, I read the chapter on washing clothes last night and all I can say is Boy I am glad I didn't live in 1859!!

[claire797]

I'm slowly making my way through Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Diary. It's an enjoyable book, but I only read a few chapters each night before I conk out.

As for food books, I'm reading Jim Fobel's Big Flavors, the current issue of Food and Wine, and some Southern cookbook whose name I can't remember.

Awbrig, David Sedaris is hilarious I haven't read Me Talk Pretty, but Naked Beneath My Clothes was pretty damn funny.

[cakewalk]

With all the traveling for Pesach (train to and from DC) I needed page turners, so I'm reading pure drivel these days and enjoying every minute of it. A Nevada Barr mystery and another mystery called The Analyst. Not only do these books require no thought whatsoever, but I can turn several pages at a time without reading them, and miss absolutely nothing. It's amazing.

I loved The Corrections. Those are some nasty characters there, and I don't think we're meant to like them, but it didn't stop me from empathizing. They all had their hard times and rough spots. And I loved the foodie stuff.

I've bought Haikus for Jews several times, and always end up sending it to someone. They're very funny, and right on the mark.

[snooky]

I'm making my way through The Kithchen Book / THe Cook Book by

Nicolas Freeling. He wrote these books in the early seventies about

his time spent in French and English hotel kitchens in the forties and

fifties. Freeling left the kitchen behind to become a sucessful

mystery writer but these stories shed a literary light on the old garde

of post war restaurants. His writing is lively and his stories are very

entertaining.

[Richard Kilgore]

The Wilder Shores of Gastronomy

J. Pepin's Technique book

Re-reading Olney's Simple French Food

A stack of various fish & game cookbooks

Off-topic: Phil Caputo's A Rumor of War

Looking for good books on Mexican food & cooking by Mexicans, translated into English

[tsquare]

Purely entertainment: "Stanley Park" by Timothy Taylor - hip restaurant, innovative food, homelessness, big business, mystery, all rolled into one. Set in Vancouver, BC.

[Eric_Malson]

This is one topic I can never resist, and since it just re-surfaced.......

"On topic", as they say here, Salt by Mark Kurlansky. Fascinating. This book must be well-known to eGulleteers, but I hadn't heard of it before a friend lent it to me.

Off topic, I recently discovered the myriad joys of Balzac, so I'm reading as much of "The Human Comedy" as I can find (VERY little of it, percentage-wise, is actually available these days in English translation). Recently finished Père Goriot, Une Ténebreuse Affaire, L'Auberge rouge.....in the middle of Histoire des Treize.

[KateW]

How to Cook a Tart, Nina Killham (based on a back-of-the-book "endorsement" by no less of an authority than the redoubtable A. Bourdain, who sez of the novel: "How to Cook a Tart is gastro-porn, as if Julia Child and William Burroughs has a bastard child.")

I thought "How to cook a tart" was pretty good, if a little twisted :) (I hope I'm thinking of the right book. It was a while ago) What did you think?

[nerissa]

On topic: The Apprentice by Jacques Pepin

Am eyeing the new paperback of Prague. Has anybody read this?

[Andrew Fenton]

Hey, I just finished The Apprentice too. Which taught me a number of important lessons, including how not to dispose of a half-dozen calf heads. Freakin' hysterical scene.

I'm also reading Our Man in Havana by Grahame Greene. Everybody's been talking about The Quiet American- thanks to the movie, as much as its "relevance"- but to my mind this is a better, and equally relevant, book. It's a satire, about a vacuum cleaner salesman in 1950's Havana who gets recruited into the British intelligence system: not because he knows anything about spying, but so he can buy his daughter a pony. Hilarity ensues...

[helenas]

On topic: Moorish and Arabesque by Greg Malouf (reading and cooking)

Off topic: with my daughter - "Master and Margarita"