"Cooking for Mr. Latte" by Amanda Hesser

[Bux]

If Hesser was writing for anyone but the Times I doubt that most readers would be anything but charmed.

I'm at a loss to understand why. There are any number of members who have touted one Times writer and bashed another. Or are you saying that she'd find a different more receptive audience in another publication rather than that the same people would be more receptive if they didn't read it in the times? By the way, the Mr. Latte articles all ran in the Sunday magazine section and not in the food and dining section. Those two sections have different editors.

[Suzanne F]

Apparently the Cookbook Award selection committee of the International Association of Culinary Professionals was charmed, since they picked Cooking for Mr. Latte as the best book of 2004 in the Literary Food Writing Category.

Edited April 28, 2004 by Suzanne F (log)

[Steve Klc]

Was the composition of that committee made public?

[Suzanne F]

Sure. Thirty-six members in all, including Elizabeth Schneider, Irena Chalmers, Suzanne Hamlin, and Darra Goldstein. If you want the whole list, PM me.

[Pumpkin Lover]

But I will say that somewhere in her columns, she provided a recipe for pasta with drained yogurt and caramelized onions that remains a favorite of mine, and for that I will be always grateful.

She made a great find with that recipe, but I think it came from a cookbook she was reviewing. It's called The Glorious Foods of Greece. That recipe alone makes me want to buy the book.

[Steve Klc]

I'd rather see the list made public, or linked to, rather than exchanged via pm Suzanne. I couldn't find a list of the judges on the IACP site, only this vague mention:

"The submissions are judged by an independent panel of 33 food and beverage professionals. Through a strict, two-tier system of judging and balloting, the entries were narrowed to three nominees in each category."

http://www.iacp.com/awards/iacpAwards/cookBook.html

Do you know if IACP members themselves get to vote during any stage of the process?

[sequim]

I have to weigh in on the side of those who enjoyed the book as I just finished reading it this weekend. The retro illustrations were the perfect touch and I found myself dogearing every other recipe. I found her stories endearing if alittle too precious now and then, but overall very entertaining, reminding me of my own attempts at "educating" people and family around me into the finer points of eating and buying the "right" types of food. Then I came upon the eGullet posts this morning and I was so surprised at the intense criticism of it and her, so much that it took away my pleasure of the read. I remember a similar experience in graduate school - how the intense critiquing and analyzing just took away my pure pleasure for the literature once it had become dissected.

I wonder if people would have enjoyed it more if it were known to be fiction? For me, I found her voice humorous, loving, self-deprecating and quite aware of her food snobism. She's willing to let it hang out which I think is admirable. I think it's great that she's so young and had such an appreciation of good food. She's also willing to learn and grow as a writer as seen in her interview which I also read - sure I think it's over the top to compare her to MFK Fisher. It's a book that I'll keep and I look forward to trying the recipes.

[Jinmyo]

Oh, sequim, I'm sorry that your pleasure was spoiled.

I don't know what the illustrations were in the book as I read the articles online weekly as they were published in the NYT Magazine. Those were indeed quite retro which I found distasteful as they added to the sense of frippery and lightheadedness of the narrative voice.

But that's just my taste. And an affect from my hope for Mandy Hesser's growth into a food writer who will be worth reading twenty years and more from now rather than a mere pattern of dust motes dancing winsomely in the light momentarily and then falling away.

If you enjoyed it, my opinion, and perhaps those expressed by others as well, should also just be motes you brush away.

[marlena spieler]

Mags' postings are so cohesive, so sensible, everything i have been wanting to say but instead just stand here gnashing my teeth and stuttering, trying to put my finger on what was bothering me, and also trying to figure out what to spit out first, word/thought wise.

un grand merci,

Marlena

[mags]

[balmagowry]

I remember a similar experience in graduate school - how the intense critiquing and analyzing just took away my pure pleasure for the literature once it had become dissected.

Grad school! I'm impressed that you withstood it that long. That is precisely the reason I dropped out of college in my junior year. Every once in a while come those pivotal moments when you get to decide whether to have your own experiences or to let others do all of your digesting for you. I don't think they could have ruined my pleasure in literature; but I could have ruined my academic career by tuning out their attempts. It seemed the better part of valor to get the hell out of dodge.

Hmmmm - now you've set me thinking about this. It has to be something, not just about the critical attitude and the rabid dissection, but about the manner of teaching. Otherwise it would be a starkly clear-cut choice between rejecting other people's views and knowledge and embracing them fully and unthinkingly. The fates defend us against both the arrogance of the former and the ovine mindlessness of the latter! The great teachers I have known (and I've been very lucky in that regard, which may be why my tolerance for pedantic fools is so low) have always engcouraged independent thought and discovery; have known how to impart traditional ideas without suffocating new ones.

Oops. </unplanned rant>

And now I guess I'd better go read the Hesser book for myself....

[Suzanne F]

I'd rather see the list made public, or linked to, rather than exchanged via pm Suzanne.  I couldn't find a list of the judges on the IACP site, only this vague mention:

"The submissions are judged by an independent panel of 33 food and beverage professionals. Through a strict, two-tier system of judging and balloting, the entries were narrowed to three nominees in each category."

http://www.iacp.com/awards/iacpAwards/cookBook.html

Do you know if IACP members themselves get to vote during any stage of the process?

Steve Klc: Why is is so important to you to have the names of all the judges? Are you insinuating that they are -- what? Not knowledgeable enough in the field, by your standards? Or possibly linked in some secret way, without the morals to recuse themselves? If this matters so much, perhaps you should join the organization -- they are, by the way, trying to start a section for Chefs and Restaurateurs -- and try to work from within to prevent those whom you apparently dislike from ever winning. How about joining the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences while you're at it, if you believe that the "wrong" movies sometimes receive Oscars?

Any cookbook published for the first time in the English language during the awards year is eligible for consideration. For this year's awards, there were over 380 entries. . . Award categories are pre-established and defined, and remain constant from year to year, allowing publishers to enter books in the category of their choice.

Policies and procedures for the awards program are determined by an independent Executive Committee and judging is accomplished by a jury of 36 respected food and beverage professionals, including food writers, newspaper and magazine food editors, cookbook authors, chefs and food critics. Three judges are assigned to each category, and each judge independently reviews all of the books entered in his or her category. Judges never know the names of the others who are assigned to their category and, although the names of the judges are announced prior to the competition, the categories assigned to each is never revealed.

Each book entered in the awards program is carefully evaluated by the jury against an extensive list of criteria. Through a strict, two-tier system of judging, the five top-scoring books in each category are identified. These are then re-evaluated, representative recipes from each book are tested and ballots are cast to narrow the field to three finalists in each category.

-- from the 2004 IACP Awards program

To the best of my knowledge, no, the general membership of IACP does not vote on this; at least, I don't remember doing so. Nor do we select the panel. [irony] That is done in some smoky back room in Louisville, I suppose. [/irony]

If you do the math, each member of the panel could have had an average of 32 books to consider this year. While it is far from a perfect system, I believe it is better than the alternatives of

1) having the entire membership vote on the entire list of 380 or so nominees (I sincerely doubt anyone in the world -- and remember that this is truly an international organization -- would be familiar with enough of them to make an informed decision), or even

2) having the entire membership vote on a "short list" whittled down by committee (which leaves open the possibility of ballot-box stuffing).

All in all, I do not see this as a significant enough issue in the greater scheme of life to lose any sleep over. If a few more copies of a few books are sold as a result, I'm happy for the authors. If they happen to be books that are not to my personal taste, so what? Lighten up, Klc. Ms. Hesser has no more power as a tastemaker in this world for having won. Nor has anyone else any less.

[Lesley C]

Cooking for Mr. Latte beat out The Apprentice book by Jacques Pepin in this category, which is a tad surprising because Pepin has been a long standing darling of the IACP, or even a founding member (not sure?).

I liked Pepin's book better (his life makes for a great read), but I'm not surprised it didn't win.

Suzanne F, do you know if this was an upset at the book awards?

[russ parsons]

all awards are weird and meaningless, unless you win one. i've experienced that from both sides of the aisle, as a judge and having had a book nominated (and articles, of course). i was a founding member of the iacp cookbook committee, at least in its current incarnation (there was an earlier competition that splintered off amid much bickering and eventually became the beard cookbook awards).

this was probably 15 years ago, i and a half-dozen or so other cookbook writers, journalists and cooking teachers gathered for a week in louisville (actually, seemed like three). they locked us in a conference room and we developed the competition from scratch. it was a very interesting process. we created the categories and defined them, created the steps of the judging, created the ballots that determined what the books would be judged on. each step was carefully debated to ensure the best possible result and, certainly, the most ethical. when we were done, we were well satisfied that we had created a model competition.

basically, three judges are assigned to each category (they don't know who each other are). The books are sent out and the judges read them and score them on a variety of factors. those ballots go back to the accountants and they come up with the top finalists (three, i believe, or maybe 5). a list of those finalists are then sent back to the judges, who are supposed to cook a minimum of three dishes from each book, and then re-score them. finally, those scores are tallied.

that said, i don't think there has been a year go by where at least 2 or 3 categories struck me as just impossibly weird decisions (and i'll certainly include the two years i was chairman of the committee--when i hand-picked every judge). there is just something that happens in a process like that that leads to unexpected results. and that is even without teh supreme court's assistance. oddly, i don't recall an instance where the result seemed to be the result of prejudice, just bad (in my opinion) decision making.

the list of the judges are published, but they're in the program which, i think, i tossed. in general, they are journalists, cookbook writers, cooking teachers who don't have a book published in that year.

[Suzanne F]

Sorry Lesley, I'm not sure what you might mean by "an upset."

All I know is what I quoted and heard announced; I have no inside information.

But for the record, the third finalist in the Literary Food Writing Category ("Non-fiction or fiction food or beverage books that are distinguished by the quality of their prose. Thes books may or may not include recipes.") was Cookoff: Recipe Fever in America by Amy Sutherland, published by Penguin Group USA. I don't know what all the rest of the books nominated in that category were.

I have not read either The Apprentice or Cookoff, so I can't offer any opinion as to whether Mr. Latte was the best choice. I just don't think it's right for people to say it is not, when they have no knowledge of the other competing books or of the judging criteria.

Edited for coding, and to add: Thanks, Russ, for giving the background on the development of the rules.

Edited May 4, 2004 by Suzanne F (log)

[Lesley C]

I just don't think it's right for people to say it is not

Did anyone here say that? I think not.

As for an upset, well was there an audible gasp in the room followed by a hundred swift glances in Pepin's direction? That would be an upset reaction.

Guess it didn't happen or you didn't see it.

And btw, I highly recommend The Apprentice. It's an interesting read for anyone in the food business, especially Americans. I just saw it out in paperback.

[Jinmyo]

I second the recommendation for The Apprentice by St. Jacques.

Somewhere in here, bourdain was raving about it when it first came out. So much so and so well that it made the review I had been asked to do irrelevant.

Pepin's generosity of spirit, width and depth of experience, and tireless dedication to teaching made for a fine book. "Seriously Old School."

It is the lack of the above that I found so evident in the Mr. Latte articles that became the book that I commented on when they were mere articles.

Instead I just felt embarassed for Mandy's friends and family for how she [portrayed herself] treated them and for her for her blithe callowness. I was appalled.

As I read the articles week by week instead of chapter after chapter as in the book perhaps I missed seeing the journey of self-discovery. Instead it just seemed to end in matrimony.

[mags]

Nah, Jinmyo, the denoument is pretty much "Reader, I married him."

That said, the one encouraging note in the book -- at least as I read it -- is that at the wedding, everybody spontaneously breaks into the Hora. Ms. Hesser notes that "We're not Jewish" (something of an understatement, that) but then -- boldly, courageously, with a new-found willingness to spit in the eye of the appropriate -- adds "but so what?"

Despite the snottiness, I mean what I say here: I DID find that an encouraging note, an indication that The Perfect and The Appropriate had somehow managed to loosen their grip a bit. Oh my gosh....I just figured out the objective correlative here! Okokok, think back some.....jeez, 20 years or so, to "Risky Business," the movie that made Tom Cruise a star. Teenage Tom, as consumed with pleasing his parents and getting into Princeton as he is consumed with lust (for Rebecca De Mornay, for the babysitter up the street, for doughnut holes), has a reprobate teenage pal -- a sort of Jack Black in training -- who smokes cigars, cheats at poker, and is probably (20-odd years later) an enormously successful Hollywood agent. Said Pal is trying to convince Goody Two Shoes Tom to do one of the various naughty things he winds up indulging in -- swiping (and then totaling) his father's expensive car, arranging to lose his virginity to a hooker, establishing a temporary brothel in his parents' suburban home -- and by way of encouragement, Pal says "Sometimes you have to say 'What the fuck.'"

These words of wisdom clearly resonate with Tom, since he then goes on to swipe the car and get naughtier from there. And I think Ms. Hesser's "so what?" moment when doing the Hora has the same kind of resonence.

So why am I fond of "Risky Business" -- for all its horrendous politics -- and bugged by "Mr. Latte"? Well, Tom Cruise's "What the fuck" moment occurs at the BEGINNING of the movie; it's followed by his increasing embrace of the decidedly inappropriate. Ms. Hesser's "But so what?" moment occurs at the END of her movie. It's as though we were watching "Ricky Business" and all we got was two hours of how anxious Tom is to please his parents and get into an Ivy League college. There is, as the story-boys say, no character arc. And ultimately I'd be much more interested in reading about how Ms. Hesser copes with her newfound urge to relax the standards a bit than I am in reading about her never-questioned passion to uphold them.

Edited May 4, 2004 by mags (log)

[russ parsons]

there may have been something of a gasp, i don't remember. it also could have had something to do with the food. in 30 years of banquet dining, i can't recall a more disastrous dinner (and that includes my days as a sportswriter!).

seriously, jacques is a great favorite of many members of the association, as well he should be. and anytime there is a competition like that, people like to try to figure the conspiracy (the italians have a perfect phrase that translates something like "the secret truth" ... which does not necessarily have anything to do with the facts).

there was something similar with my book. people repeatedly told me before the awards that i was a shoe-in because a) i was a journalist and people would be trying to curry favor; b) i had spent so many years on the judging committee; c) i was nominated in two categories. nah. shut-out, 0-2. THE BASTARDS! but it was an honor just being nominated ...

as for this particular award, i was split. amanda is a friend. i don't know jacques quite as well, but his book editor is my book editor and a dear friend. personally, i liked both books but thought both books had some flaws. more to the point of this discussion, perhaps, it is hard to think of anything in any awards competition that could shock me anymore.

[sequim]

I remember a similar experience in graduate school - how the intense critiquing and analyzing just took away my pure pleasure for the literature once it had become dissected.

Grad school! I'm impressed that you withstood it that long. That is precisely the reason I dropped out of college in my junior year. Every once in a while come those pivotal moments when you get to decide whether to have your own experiences or to let others do all of your digesting for you. I don't think they could have ruined my pleasure in literature; but I could have ruined my academic career by tuning out their attempts. It seemed the better part of valor to get the hell out of dodge.

/OT

Oh hell, I made it to grad school but I dropped out after a year. My undergrad classes were great and inspiring, I thought grad would be the same. Instead, it was all about politics and the absurdity of deconstruction theory... I think I might still have been writing if I hadn't gone...

/end OT

Okay I've cleared the motes of discourse and stand firm with my original impression of the book as a fun read. I wonder if I'll change my opinion once I read her first book.

[amytraverso]

One thing that is clear from all these posts is that, when evaluating a personal essay, the reader inevitably projects his or her own world view or hang-ups or experiences onto the writer. Some here saw in A.H. a young woman's charming, yes winsome, struggle to overcome her own pretensions and to find true love (which is probably how the author would describe herself, though I don't know). Others see a supercilious woman who is far too obsessed with trying to be the perfect New York foodie literista. Perhaps all of these personae do exist in her.

And maybe the strongest writers are more "projection-proof." That is, they're clearer about what they're trying to express. But in general, I find that when I have a very strong negative reaction to someone's persona...particularly someone I don't know very well...I end up realizing that it says something more interesting about me than it does about them. That is not to say that there is no room for objective literary criticism of personal essays, but this stuff does tend to get awfully, well, personal.

[mags]

One thing that is clear from all these posts is that, when evaluating a personal essay, the reader inevitably projects his or her own world view or hang-ups or experiences onto the writer..... in general, I find that when I have a very strong negative reaction to someone's persona...particularly someone I don't know very well...I end up realizing that it says something more interesting about me than it does about them. That is not to say that there is no room for objective literary criticism of personal essays, but this stuff does tend to get awfully, well, personal.

I think all criticism, all writing, and all analysis of others (and their writing) inevitably proceeds from a particular POV. I'd venture, for example, that John Simon's personal distaste for women is made very clear by his reviews of plays in which they have the misfortune (unless they're young and er...winsome) to appear. And that analysis of mine, by turn, is inevitably rooted in my being a feminist and having been an actress, and thus perhaps hyper-sensitive to what I view as Mr. Simon's misogyny.

But I don't know why this phenomenon -- by which the reviewer's personality is revealed more coherently than that value of what he/she is reviewing -- should be any stronger with regard to personal essays than to anything else. Outside of the grayest of journalism (and even that should, perhaps, not be excepted), an author's voice and views and assumptions are usually plain on the page; most of the time, a reader has nothing to evaluate beyond the persona that's presented. By which I mean that I don't know Ms. Hesser personally, and can only react to the "Amanda Hesser" that she presented in the book; I believe my reaction would have been identical if A) she had called the character Honoria Glossop, or B) if the book had been presented as fiction. In other words, I find "Amanda Hesser" somewhat controlling, adolescent, and insecure; about Amanda Hesser (no quotes) I can only say she's an engaging writer with a nice turn of phrase and some appealing-looking recipes.

[Amanda]

jinmyo,

this may not change your views, but i do want to clarify something. my book has 37 chapters, 13 of which never appeared in the times magazine. when i began working on the book, i realized that (sadly) i couldn't just slap the magazine stories together and call it a book. so i did a lot of work on the stories, combining some, deleting others and rewriting many of them. my hope was to have a collection that read more as a cohesive story, with a beginning, a middle and an end. i added the extra 13 because there were things i wanted to write about, but which hadn't fit into the magazine's schedule.

- a

[balmagowry]

/OT

Oh hell, I made it to grad school but I dropped out after a year. My undergrad classes were great and inspiring, I thought grad would be the same. Instead, it was all about politics and the absurdity of deconstruction theory... I think I might still have been writing if I hadn't gone...

/end OT

(Sorry to carry the OT-ness another step - I rationalize that it isn't entirely OT, in a sense, because it does speak to how we read and grasp other people's work.)

You said a mouthful. My experience was parallel except that in my case it was high school that was so exciting and mind-expanding, such a tough act to follow. (Have since learned from several of my high school classmates that they were similarly disappointed in college for the same reason.) College was perhaps as good as anything could be under the circumstances, but... intellectually just not as stimulating. Didn't stand a chance. As for deconstruction - not for nothing did my mother and I invent the Culinary Deconstruction of Literature when we went on the lecture circuit. Mind you, it was a useful discipline - but in hindsight it also made for a marvelous spoof.

That last line of yours above may be one of the saddest things I've seen in a long time. I can't help hoping that one of these days you will change "still writing" to "writing again."

Back to - or at least closer to - the topic at hand... I wonder about that whole question of projecting oneself into what one reads. It is of course something we all do, to one degree or another, and I'm still trying to understand the connection between that and deconstruction, if such there be. I think you may have hit on a key point. How much of criticism (not necessarily in the official journalistic sense - I'm thinking more of the kind of critical discussion going on here) and deconstruction originally flow from the same impulse? I don't know the answer to this, I'm just posing the question as it arises in my mind - it seems to me that anything one reads that doesn't inspire an immediate sense of kinship, familiarity, shared experience, may instead generate a nagging sense of dissatisfaction, a need to find a way to compartmentalize, to translate what one has read into terms that fit into one's sphere of comprehension. I'm floundering here, feeling my way, because the thought is that new to me - I know I'm not expressing this clearly because I'm not grasping it clearly yet. But I know I've sometimes had that sort of reaction to something I've read, and it does strike me as somewhat akin to the one that prompts the deconstruction exercise. Got to break it down into terms that can be explained and communicated, or continue to be haunted by it. Can be a pretty powerful urge.

(Then again, that may be the whole reason for distrusting deconstruction. If by demystifying too much one also exorcises, then no wonder one also runs the risk of destroying charm and feeling as well. Sometimes it's better to be haunted - sometimes that's the whole point! I never think of "Romeo and Juliet" - to take an extreme example - without being frustrated and infuriated. And I think that's good; it would be dangerous, intellectually dishonest, to defuse that.)

This is definitely not aimed at anyone or anything in particular - at least, I hasten to say I'm still talking through my hat as regards any remarks about the book in question, because I still have not read it. Which on the one hand gives me no right to participate in the discussion, but on the other gives me an opportunity to think a little bit objectively about the nature of the discussion, precisely because I don't yet have an opinion of my own about the subject.

Which is probably impossibly pompous of me, in which case I'd better apologize and shut up.

[Jinmyo]

Hi, Amanda. I see. Thanks.

Then I can't judge the book. And perhaps there was an arc throughout that I will have missed entirely.

When I have an opportunity I'll find a copy and read through it.

By the way, I hope that you have some good projects coming up. The reviewing stint has been hard on you.