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DISHING

Name: DISHING
Author: Liz Smith
ISBN: 0-7432-5156-3

GREAT DISH--AND DISHES--FROM AMERICA’S MOST BELOVED GOSSIP COLUMNIST

by Liz Smith ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 2005

Good-natured fast food from the doyenne of gossip columnists. Goes well with a cold Dr. Pepper or a slug of Booker’s.

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The venerable gossip columnist talks and eats her way through a memoir that recalls great comestibles shared with the gliterati of half a century.

Liz Smith, a Fort Worth girl brought up on chicken fried steak, jailhouse chili and watermelon, must have been the advance guard of the Texan assault on the bluest state when she arrived in Manhattan in 1949. Her open good nature—and her access to print—gave her the opportunity to sup with the powerful, dine with the stars, nosh with Social Register swells and spend considerable time at the trough with assorted biggies. She describes the oysters, pastries, deep fries and high teas that nourished her at Le Cirque, Elaine’s and intimate dinner parties on the Vineyard or overlooking the East River. Here’s pal Liz Taylor in ravenous mode. Here’s Erica Jong, Henri Soulé and Elaine Strich. Nora Ephron takes over a few pages. Don’t forget Mr. Forbes and “Malcolm’s calm and friendly natives on his island.” Names drop like lard on a hot skillet. M. Proust (one personage Liz didn’t seem to encounter) evoked the past by remembering a sponge cake, but Proust never gave a recipe. Our memoirist provides many. A choice ingredient that dieters should know: bacon drippings. There’s instruction in the art of the eulogy, and there’s an etiquette class for children, both, like all else, a guileless stream of consciousness ornamented with aphorisms from W.S. Gilbert and Ogden Nash and sprinkled overall with oddball footnotes, like raisins. Smith maintains a sweet penchant for the inane. It might be noted that Richard Wilbur, not Sondheim, holds the copyright for the lyric “glitter and be gay,” but only a grouch would demand accuracy in such a confection. Just pass the Tums, please.

Good-natured fast food from the doyenne of gossip columnists. Goes well with a cold Dr. Pepper or a slug of Booker’s.

Pub Date: April 5, 2005

ISBN: 0-7432-5156-3

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2005

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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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.