This week I read Eat, Memory, a collection of essays from the New York Times, edited by Amanda Hesser. A book about cooking and food, I am in heaven. Each essay was very well written. All were from widely different perspectives. I enjoyed that. This would be a great coffee table book - each story can be read in under 10 minutes. Most of the essays end with a special recipe that relates to the story. I can't wait to try some of them out.
Excerpts from the book:
My German-American grandmother had more talent than money (just what you need to be a really good cook).
Let me say that once you have been exposed to French cooking and French life, and they take, there is a long and happy aftermath. It's like knowing how to carve a turkey or sail a boat; it puts you up a notch.
It was the feeding of his friends [that] he believed in; in his mind, chopping onions for strangers was an entirely different, somehow smaller-hearted enterprise.
One ought never give up. Never. Even when you've lost it all.
*Page 165 has a recipe for Katsu Don (Japanese pork cutlets served on rice). This is a family favorite of the Voyles - my dad has also recreated the Tonkatsu sauce to go with it. It is delish.My patriotism was actually a brand of nostalgia which was, at its core, culinary and sensual as much as it was idealistic.
I decide[d] to move to Japan to teach the only thing I can confidently claim to know after four years of college: English.
We celebrate, Jews and Germans together, because Berlin is a city with a terrible past but a promising future.
Gravy is the simplest, tastiest, most memory-laden dishes I know how to make: a little flour, salt and pepper, crispy bits of whatever meat anchored the meal, a couple of cups of water or milk and slow stirring to break up the lumps. That's it.
Mama made magic with cheap meat, flour and determination – hiding from us how desperate things might be.
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