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BEST FOOD WRITING 2000

Name: BEST FOOD WRITING 2000
Author: Holly Hughes
ISBN: 1-56924-616-5

edited by Holly Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 2000

Plenty of satisfying entrees here, but next year the editor should try to provide some more adventurous fare as well.

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The debut of a planned annual collection, this stellar selection of mostly American food writing has everything but the unexpected.

Among the top-drawer usual suspects featured here, R.W. Apple Jr. delves into bacon; Jeffrey Steingarten spends a whole lot of pages on his quest for pig’s blood; Calvin Trillin tries to tempt his daughter home with bagels; and James Villas goes on about pimento cheese. No doubt M.F.K. Fisher, Jane Grigson, and Waverly Root would be here too if they hadn’t died before Y2K. Less trafficked names still recognizable to those who read food magazines comprise the remainder. Highlights include John Thorne, who is not only a deep thinker and lovely writer but actually seems to be living his material rather than simply remembering it; Ann Hodgman, who as always provides an intelligent, comic breath of fresh air; and wild Jim Leff, the chowhound, in whose heart a fire for authentic food burns bright. English cuisine is resurrected by playwright Jonathan Reynolds, who recently subbed for and upstaged the dreary Molly O’Neill in the New York Times Magazine, and novelist Jhumpa Lahiri offers an elegant, fragile food memory. But former Fodor’s editor Hughes didn’t extend her reach much beyond the New Yorker, the New York Times, the food glossies, and a few heavily publicized books. It would have enhanced this collection if she’d made an effort to include some of the fresh, surprising writing that appears in letters distributed by wine shops and single-malt societies, newspapers issued by such stores as the Vinegar Factory and Zingermann’s, the rogue material on the Internet, or anything at all from the Slow Food movement, whose magazine Slow is in a class by itself.

Plenty of satisfying entrees here, but next year the editor should try to provide some more adventurous fare as well.

Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2000

ISBN: 1-56924-616-5

Page Count: 384

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2000

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
BEST FOOD WRITING 2014
edited by Holly Hughes

- BOOK REVIEW
BEST FOOD WRITING 2013
edited by Holly Hughes

- BOOK REVIEW
BEST FOOD WRITING 2012
edited by Holly Hughes

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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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.