Classic, unfettered goodness with a sustainable mindset.
The dynamic stars of Planet Green TV’s The Fabulous Beekman Boys offer up the ultimate volume of their most treasured, hand-me-down recipes.
In order to “relinquish the overly indulgent and instantly gratified existence to which we had become accustomed,” memoirist Kilmer-Purcell (The Bucolic Plague, 2010, etc.) and Ridge, a former vice president at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, relocated to the 60-acre Beekman farm in upstate New York. Inspired by the country life, their cookbook emphasizes the use of fresh, organic, homegrown ingredients—and not just because their farmhouse is located 20 miles from the nearest grocery store. The authors organize the sections seasonally, beginning with springtime offerings that include greens from the garden to make Dandelion or Spinach salads; asparagus, both roasted and baked into a “custardy” torte; and homegrown peas in a white wine risotto with freshly picked strawberries and rhubarb for sweeter creations. While somewhat light on creativity, heirloom garden fruits and vegetables highlight cool, basic summery offerings such as Chanterais Melon Salad, Grandma’s Potato Salad, Meat Loaf Burgers using the authors’ signature “Blaak Cheese,” and Buttery Peach Cake. The bountiful harvests from fall and winter inspire more rustic, hearty meals like Hungarian Pork Goulash, Baked Apple Dumplings and Spiced Carrot Cake. Vibrant photographs and personal memories and anecdotes round out this obvious labor of love. The authors shine best when tweaking commonplace recipes with alterations of their own, which, they write, add flavor, sophistication and spicy diversity. For instance, “Supermoist Corn Bread” benefits from the addition of buttermilk and sour cream, while linguine is transformed with freshly chopped mint and lavender. Epicurean advice on toasting nuts and making buttermilk, poultry stocks and greens further enhances this uniquely homespun collection of throwback recipes.
Classic, unfettered goodness with a sustainable mindset.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4027-8709-6
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2011
While he wastes some time exposing cliches—Indians in westerns, unworthy sequels—that are cliches to expose, Eco...
Popular novelist (The Name of the Rose, 1983; Foucault's Pendulum, 1989) and notorious semiologist (at the Univ. of Bologna) Eco shows himself to be a journalist as well with this generally diverting volume of short pieces.
Eco calls these short essays diario minimo—minimal diaries—after the magazine column where he first published a series of such efforts (previously collected in Misreadings). The work presented here, much of which dates from the late '80s and early '90s, celebrates, or more often condemns, postmodern life in a style familiar to American readers. Occasional parodic fantasies in the mode of Borges or Calvino find Eco exploring the intriguing, if absurd, notion of a map in 1:1 scale, chronicling race relations in a future universe populated by humorously bizarre alien life-forms, or describing watches whose features cause one to lose track of the time. But Eco focuses on articulating his amusing complaints, analyzing our quotidian myths with light touches and lamentations that will recall Andy Rooney and Erma Bombeck—at best, an academic Mike Royko—sooner than Roland Barthes. Pieces on once-current events have been carefully excluded, but most of these essays remain essentially journalistic in their devotion to exploring contemporary life. The title piece pits Eco against an English hotel bureaucracy intent on making it difficult for him to refrigerate an expensive salmon that he has brought from Copenhagen; others mock "how-to'' essays—on fax machines and cellular telephones, for example; there are cautionary tales of encounters with Amtrak trains and Roman cabs. All have as their subtext the chaos brought in the wake of unbridled technological innovation and intercontinental travel.
While he wastes some time exposing cliches—Indians in westerns, unworthy sequels—that are cliches to expose, Eco entertains with his clever reflections and with his unique persona, the featured player in his stories.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-15-100136-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Esposito may not tell all, but he comes close in this brutally honest, yet loyal, memoir of his days with the King. From when they met in the Army to the afternoon when he was one of the first to discover the dead body of Elvis Presley where he had collapsed from his toilet throne (Esposito was the one who raised his pajama trousers to avoid embarrassment), Presley's right-hand man was in a position to know the inside scoop. He and Oumano (Paul Newman, 1989) describe Elvis as being like a little boy who spent his wealth making himself and the people around him happy. The anecdotes are endless as this pivotal member of the ``Memphis Mafia'' comes clean on the partying Elvis's parade of girlfriends and his suitcase full of sexy videotapes and Polaroids of Priscilla (Esposito handed it to her the moment she arrived at Graceland for the funeral). Esposito tells of the Elvis who stopped passersby to give them money or gifts, who would decide suddenly that ten or so of his friends all needed Harleys to race around Bel Air, who would not flinch at buying a car for family or friends who were loyal to him, and who made an infamous visit to see President Nixon. But he also gives up the goods on the Elvis who was hopelessly self-indulgent, constantly demonstrating his dubious karate skills, buying people off with expensive gifts rather than admitting he was wrong, and finally dying a prisoner in his own bedroom, uninterested in facing new challenges and addicted to prescription drugs. Video rentals of Girls! Girls! Girls! are sure to surge so people can look for the scene in which Elvis sports an erection in his too-tight pants. While apologetic and loyalist at times, Esposito doesn't let the King off too easy. (16 pages of b&w photos, not seen) (Author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-79507-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
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