A sophisticated raconteur, Chelminski tells a story that would grace a leisurely lunch at a French countryside inn.
This story of the man who brought Beaujolais to the world’s tables carries distinctive flavors of French history, cuisine and terrain with accents of style and wit.
To write of the Beaujolais and of French wine is to write of all France, its people, their history, their food, their work habits, says Chelminski (The Perfectionist: Life and Death in Haute Cuisine, 2005). Viewing winemaker/wine merchant Georges Duboeuf from that panoramic perspective, Chelminski presents a volume that’s as much food and travel guide as it is biography. The author begins by reaching back to the early 17th century when Philip the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy, banned the gamay grape lest it upstage the beloved wine of his region. Peasants to the south, in Macon, nurtured the unloved gamay, which took to its soil and eventually blossomed as the source of Beaujolais, the wine that brightens November. Its peasant origins set the wine on the second shelf until Duboeuf came onto the scene in the 1950s. Duboeuf took the wines his family and others made and, bypassing dealers, sold directly to restaurants. With boosts from palate-sated journalists and the arrival of nouvelle cuisine, which the fruity Beaujolais complemented, the wine took Paris—and soon the world. (A chapter on British buyers racing to be the first home with the Beaujolais could make a very funny film.) By Chelminki’s richly detailed account, Duboeuf’s is an uncomplicated life of hard work rewarded by success. Had Chelminski, who has known Duboeuf for 30 years, considered the latter’s occasional setbacks (e.g. a failed attempt in the ’80s to expand operations to California’s Napa Valley), it would have added a note of tension to balance the narrative.
A sophisticated raconteur, Chelminski tells a story that would grace a leisurely lunch at a French countryside inn.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-592-40320-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Gotham Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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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