The ongoing drama of Rehak’s picky-eater son offers anecdotal entertainment, but the stakes are too insubstantial to qualify...
A sanguine account of the year Rehak (Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her, 2005) spent immersed in local food production.
To give herself a crash-course culinary education in what to feed her one-year-old son, Jules, the author volunteered to work in the kitchen of a small Brooklyn restaurant, “applewood.” She wanted to think more about the food she ate but felt overwhelmed by the amount of information in books, newspapers and foodie magazines. Her yearlong endeavors to form her own ideas on the subject include picking vegetables at an upstate farm, making cheese, packing and delivering produce in the middle of the night, milking goats and sea-fishing. The bulk of the narrative unfolds at applewood during ten-hour shifts spent cooking, chopping, flipping, prepping, baking and studying the restaurant’s two owners, David and Laura Shea. Rehak’s conclusions—that “we should eat as locally as possible, we should support small farms”—are ones she grasped at the project’s outset, but she hadn’t understood the reasons why these truths are so important. Included in the book are recipes, and she quotes liberally from authors as varied as Wendell Berry, Emily Dickinson and James Joyce. Rehak doesn’t lack inspiration, and her subject is laudable. However, with so many books covering the same topic, she could use a more dynamic angle, opting to focus more on the personal side of her story. She spends countless hours with people in the food business, affirming the argument for supporting local and organic farmers and butchers, but not a single voice in these pages articulates a different view. Consequently, readers are taught the same lesson in each chapter, from cheese to fish to desserts.
The ongoing drama of Rehak’s picky-eater son offers anecdotal entertainment, but the stakes are too insubstantial to qualify as gripping, no matter how enthusiastic the author.Pub Date: July 8, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-15-101437-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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