That guy in the bib overalls who shows up on TV on Sunday mornings offers a tongue-in-cheek celebration of the larger meaning of the comestibles he likes. He will, it is clear, eat anything (and is proud of it). Welsch (Touching the Fire, 1992, etc.), anthropologist, folklorist, and dedicated trencherman of CBS Sunday Morning, describes the pleasures of very down-home, almost Neolithic, cookery. Mama's gelatinous rice, cowboy frybread, frumenty (wet wheat), and ``lachs'' (his spelling for the pink fish that, in the east, accompanies a schmear on a bagel) are all liable to grace his table. Lutefisk, beaver tail, and frequently porcine byproducts are grist for his mill. Welsch tries his darndest to entice the reader to partake of the delicacies he so ardently describes. Unless you are turned on by the thought of ingesting cold bacon grease while squatting in a duck blind, it's no sale. The text is larded with ``recipes'' that are both wildly (and intentionally) idiosyncratic and antinutritional. In the instructions for baked beans: ``add cut-up bacon, hamhocks, spam, wienies, old pork chops, bacon ends, fatback, sowbelly, etc.'' The portly Sage of Dannebrog, Neb. (pop. 322), is right: This is strictly guy stuff. They don't teach this sort of respect for gustatory adventure in ``Woman School,'' Welsch reports. The fun with food is easygoing and the wit is bucolic. (Welsch reinforces the style by not following the noun ``couple'' with the preposition ``of''; it's ``a couple this'' and ``a couple that.'') The text is as likely to satisfy as a six-pack of the local beer and ``boom John Carter's Huevos Rancheros,'' and is just as comfortable. A light ethnogastronomy of male feeding habits, of beans, bier mit tchuss, and such. Inevitably, just a bit gaseous. ($30,000 ad/promo; TV satellite tour)
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-06-018717-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1997
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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