by Giuliano Bugialli ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 27, 1994
Bugialli (Giuliano Bugialli's Foods of Italy, not reviewed) provides some unusual, challenging recipes—not an easy feat in the crowded field of Italian cookbooks. However, what is just a good cookbook could have been a great one with the inclusion of more information. A brief introduction explains the provenance of his recipes (many researched as far back as the 14th century) and declares that they derive from various regions, but the recipes themselves are free-floating, without subheads (i.e., it would be nice to know which region each comes from) and with few hints to facilitate preparation. The photographs, while luscious, are no help either since they often do not coincide with Bugialli's instructions. For example, in the recipe for Spaghetti with Air- Dried Cherry Tomatoes, Bugialli instructs the cook to toss pasta, tomatoes, and parsley in the casserole used to cook the tomatoes, then serve, but the photograph shows a serving bowl of pasta with tomatoes and parsley on top still waiting to be combined. Even more vexing was Schiacciata (a flat bread similar to focaccia) with Fresh Grapes. While the result was delicious, it looked nothing like the example, which was rectangular in shape even though the recipe calls for rolling the dough out into a circle. Nor is it clear why one should fit a 16-inch circle of dough into a 14-inch pan. Could the disparity have been due to the tough dough? No clues are forthcoming. A treat for those who enjoy leaping in with little guidance, but not for the novice. (Book-of-the-Month Club selection)
Pub Date: Oct. 27, 1994
ISBN: 1-55670-384-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
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