Solid and well-researched stuff, and a pleasure for fans of Patrick O’Brian, C.S. Forester, and other chroniclers of the...
A satisfying tale of a mighty ship, and of a half-century under the mast in some of Europe’s fiercest wars.
HMS Bellerophon, writes English maritime historian Cordingly (Women Sailors and Sailors’ Women, 2001, etc.), came into existence in 1782 with only the grudging consent of the Admiralty, which foresaw little use for a big, 74-gun vessel at the time. Soon enough, though, the Bellerophon—whose crew, not trained in the gentlemanly study of Greek mythology, called her the “Billy Ruffian” or “Belly Rough One” or variants thereof—was chasing around the high seas after French privateers, then Napoleon’s fleet, facing down said blighters in encounters such as the Battle of the Glorious First of June (1794), the Battle of the Nile (1798), and, most famous of all, the Battle of Trafalgar (1805). She took her blows and lost plenty of hands, but fewer so than her French foes; Cordingly describes one engagement in which the French commander lost both his legs, but “got himself strapped into a chair and was heard to say that a French admiral ought to die on his own quarterdeck”—just before being cut in two by a cannonball. (The incident, Cordingly adds, inspired the once widely recited poem that opens “The boy stood on the burning deck.”) By good fortune, the Bellerophon received intelligence that Napoleon was planning to flee France after the Battle of Waterloo (1815) and kept after him until the emperor surrendered; the ship escorted him to Plymouth, where curious onlookers rowed out to gawk at the captive, but was judged incapable of making the long voyage to St. Helena, where Nappy lived out his days in exile. Alas, the Bellerophon lived out her own last days as a prison ship, an inglorious end to a much-vaunted vessel of the line.
Solid and well-researched stuff, and a pleasure for fans of Patrick O’Brian, C.S. Forester, and other chroniclers of the fighting sail.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2003
ISBN: 1-58234-193-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2003
Children's book author Medear°s has bitten off more than she can chew in trying to cover Africa and the Caribbean as well as early and modern African-American cooking. Simple recipes are nothing special: almond-infused warm milk from Morocco is soothing, but hardly worth the hour necessary to prepare it, and an eggplant dip from Nigeria is piquant, although attempts to grind, as instructed, a teaspoon of sesame seeds and a single clove of garlic in a standard blender are bound to fail. The chapter on ``Slave Kitchens'' provides some of the most interesting fodder for thought with a recipe for fried squirrel. Modern African-American dishes are somewhat characterless in comparison. It is hard to discern any appropriate cultural roots in crab salad with feta dressing and fajitas filled with shellfish. A brief, tacked-on chapter supplies menus and a few dishes for holidays like Juneteenth (June 19, emancipation day in Texas) and Kwanzaa. There are a few cooking faux pas here that simply cannot be ignored: A recipe for black beans and rice calls for undrained canned beans, adding a hefty dose of sodium, and a recipe for Ethiopia's flat injera bread calls for Aunt Jemima's Deluxe Easy Pour Pancake Mix in place of the traditional grain teff; while this may be the way injera is commonly made today, it will strike some readers as a bad ethnic joke. Medear°s dots these pages with mostly banal quotes from well- known African-Americans like Booker T. Washington, Oprah Winfrey, and...herself. A multicultural mess.
Pub Date: Oct. 11, 1994
ISBN: 0-525-93834-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
The perennially popular Union Square Cafe's trademark is its use of the freshest ingredients and high style combined with warm hospitality, and this book relies on the same principles. Owner Meyer and chef Romano successfully translate recipes from restaurant to home scale, although the use of mise-en-place— listing ingredients in the form in which they will be used—is off- putting (i.e., readers may find themselves in the supermarket trying to puzzle out how many peppers equal ``1 cup sliced bell pepper''). Still, all of those recipes tested, from creamless mushroom soup to sweet and spicy bar nuts, were tasty and inventive. Meyer and Romano have generously included most of their signature dishes, including fabulous fried calamari with an unusual graham cracker crumb crust and their most popular dessert, baked banana tart. There are some simple dishes here, but more are multitiered, full-day projects, like the lasagne layered with goat cheese and vegetables that are baked separately beforehand; detailed instructions are broken down into manageable steps. Introductory information is sensible and helpful, and the advice for pairing wines with food has to be some of the least pretentious—yet still educational—oenological writing ever. When Meyer admits that opening night was less than spectacular, he clinches the title of humblest restaurateur around. Destined to become a foodie bible, and with good reason. (40 color photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-06-017013-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
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