A helpful, systematic approach to developing a discriminating palate.
A thorough investigation of the sensation of taste.
As a professional food developer, Stuckey has to understand the how and why of taste in order to create new palate-pleasing food products. Here she leads readers into the science of what happens to food once it reaches our mouths, with taste being “only about twenty percent of the story. Food that tastes good also looks good, smells good, feels good, and sounds good.” Using examples from her experiences at home, in restaurants and at work, Stuckey analyzes the “five building blocks of taste, “four [of which] are familiar to most people: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter” The fifth, umami, refers to the perception of a savory or meaty taste that makes soups and broths full-bodied. Complex evaluations give readers a precise breakdown of each of these five types and how one sensation directly affects the other. Stuckey provides technical but readable discussions of such topics as orthonasal olfaction (nose-smelling taste) versus retronasal olfaction (mouth-smelling taste). To aid in understanding this specialized information, the author supplies readers with many flavor-related exercises designed to increase responsiveness to various foods. These include a simple test to determine the number of taste buds on one’s tongue, eating blindfolded or eating with cotton balls stuffed into the nose to block the sensation of smell. Seeking to launch a “culture of taste appreciation,” Stuckey writes that taste is “using all five of our senses to find the hidden joy in food and take the full pleasure out of every bite.”
A helpful, systematic approach to developing a discriminating palate.Pub Date: March 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4391-9073-9
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2012
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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