A smorgasbord of essays to satiate the hungry reader’s palate.
The latest edition of the food-writing series, edited by former Fodor’s Travel Publications executive editor Hughes.
The collection is light on celebrity-chef profiles and restaurant reviews, offering instead wide-ranging essays on topics ranging from how we find solace in food (David Leite’s “When Food Doesn’t Heal”) to cross-cultural disorientation (Chang-Rae Lee’s “Magical Dinners”). A new section, “Foodways,” contains stories of African-American culinary influences of the 1960s and ’70s, Venetian seafood, farming Kenyan vegetables in Minneapolis, the egalitarianism of drive-thrus and how eating local in New York City translates into a delicious fusion of Italian and Chinese flavors. Readers will learn what attracts people to shark fin soup, what constitutes a food desert and why access to grocery stores is important. Another new section, “Guilty Pleasures,” includes mirthful thoughts about Vienna sausages, tater tots and the “food of depravity”: pimiento cheese, Doritos, smoked oysters and other unforgettable midnight munchies. Three stories delve into the use of digital media by foodies: Nick Fauchald describes his online food diary (zero followers three weeks into his Twitter feed), Sara Deseran laments the burgeoning social-media use by foodies in San Francisco and Ike DeLorenzo describes the good and bad about online food sites Yelp, Chowhound and Citysearch, and the move by Facebook and Google to encourage restaurant reviews. As DeLorenzo writes, diners are redefining the table setting: “Fork on the left, knife on the right, iPhone top center. It’s chew and review, toast and post.” Other contributors to this year’s anthology include newcomers Gabrielle Hamilton (Blood, Bones, and Butter, 2011), Lisa Abend (The Sorcerer’s Apprentices, 2011) and stalwarts Colman Andrews, Christopher Kimball and Floyd Skloot.
A smorgasbord of essays to satiate the hungry reader’s palate.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7382-1518-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Da Capo Lifelong
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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