This 14th entry in the Knopf Cooks American series is top- notch (even Knopf's trademark borzoi has gotten into the spirit, sporting a jaunty toque). Cookbook writer Dooley (Peppers, Hot and Sweet, not reviewed) and Watson, owner of an eponymous restaurant in Minneapolis, update regional favorites with sensible revisionism. Our guides present foods from Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, upper Michigan, and eastern North Dakota that reflect varied northern and eastern European immigration, cold weather, long distances between homes, and—as in the case of a pliant white bread using leftover mashed potatoes—the sturdy, thrifty values for which the Midwest is known. Along with the clear, extremely functional recipes are bits of information about such local delicacies as lutefisk (preserved codfish brought over from Norway) and the ice cream sundae, which was invented in Two Rivers, Wis. One entire chapter is devoted to ``hot dishes''—one-dish meals popular for church suppers and other informal gatherings; and alongside the traditional chicken pot pie, Dooley and Watson offer innovations like roasted vegetable strudel. Even a standard leftover meat casserole is perked up with caramelized onions and cognac. Likewise, dairy and egg options include blintzes that would not have been out of place in a turn-of-the-century kitchen though pepped up with fresh corn in the batter and fresh basil in the ricotta and Parmesan cheese filling. Hearty, homey eating, imbued with today's wisdom. Even coastal snobs will be dashing to the kitchen. (75 b&w illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: Oct. 19, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-41175-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
An extraordinary true tale of torment, retribution, and loyalty that's irresistibly readable in spite of its intrusively melodramatic prose. Starting out with calculated, movie-ready anecdotes about his boyhood gang, Carcaterra's memoir takes a hairpin turn into horror and then changes tack once more to relate grippingly what must be one of the most outrageous confidence schemes ever perpetrated. Growing up in New York's Hell's Kitchen in the 1960s, former New York Daily News reporter Carcaterra (A Safe Place, 1993) had three close friends with whom he played stickball, bedeviled nuns, and ran errands for the neighborhood Mob boss. All this is recalled through a dripping mist of nostalgia; the streetcorner banter is as stilted and coy as a late Bowery Boys film. But a third of the way in, the story suddenly takes off: In 1967 the four friends seriously injured a man when they more or less unintentionally rolled a hot-dog cart down the steps of a subway entrance. The boys, aged 11 to 14, were packed off to an upstate New York reformatory so brutal it makes Sing Sing sound like Sunnybrook Farm. The guards continually raped and beat them, at one point tossing all of them into solitary confinement, where rats gnawed at their wounds and the menu consisted of oatmeal soaked in urine. Two of Carcaterra's friends were dehumanized by their year upstate, eventually becoming prominent gangsters. In 1980, they happened upon the former guard who had been their principal torturer and shot him dead. The book's stunning denouement concerns the successful plot devised by the author and his third friend, now a Manhattan assistant DA, to free the two killers and to exact revenge against the remaining ex-guards who had scarred their lives so irrevocably. Carcaterra has run a moral and emotional gauntlet, and the resulting book, despite its flaws, is disturbing and hard to forget. (Film rights to Propaganda; author tour)
Pub Date: July 10, 1995
ISBN: 0-345-39606-5
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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