LET US EAT CAKE

A restaurant critic and food writer’s engaging recollections: part memoir, part cookbook.

Boorstin was clearing out an unused desk when she unearthed a notebook of 30-year-old recipes that recalled her youth and led her to examine cuisine connections among family and friends. She didn’t just forage in her memory bank; she sought out and reconnected with friends from school days, as well as more recent acquaintances. The memories they share are often funny (mushrooms stuffed with marijuana, the snails that got away) and sometimes wistful, as divorce, sickness, and death play inescapable roles over three decades. Food professionals Boorstin encountered in the course of her work make cameo appearances and contribute recipes: Julia Child explains how to cook a lobster; Wolfgang Puck passes along his formula for matzoh; and Nell Newman reveals the makings of father Paul’s favorite angel-food cake. Other recipes include avocado soup from London via Kenya, the perfect gazpacho from Spain, and a “husband-catcher cake” handed down for three generations (apparently it works). Especially winning are tales of her mother, who always kept a big chest freezer filled with frozen marshmallows, big oatmeal cookies, and Dungeness crab legs. (Dad was vice president of a Seattle fish company.) Mom was a good cook, but given to doctoring vegetables with Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup (an icon of 1950s cuisine) and “all business” with Sharon in the kitchen. Boorstin made it a point to welcome her own daughter warmly into the kitchen, where they listened to opera, gossiped, and became friends as they cooked sans canned mushroom soup. “Women bond over food the way men do over sports,” she concludes.

Bon appetit to readers who agree with that rather sweeping statement; even those who don’t will enjoy the cheerful anecdotes and the memorable dishes. (photos, not seen)