The Sweet Life in Paris - David Lebovitz

Books written by former Chez Panisse chefs are ubiquitous. And while part of me finds this annoying, the other part of me keeps reading them. In my recent quest for new recipes, and my sadness that I haven't lately been able to travel much, David Lebovitz's book seemed exactly what I needed. A pastry chef, Lebovitz (like so many others) traveled to France and fell in love with Paris. But, instead of pining away from afar, he actually packed up all his belongings and moved there. The Sweet Life in Paris is an account of his new life - all the tricks he learns about settling in among the natives, and the favorite recipes that keep him sane while doing so. Levovitz's observations are ones I've often read before in other memoirs about the American life in Paris - most notably (for me) the idea that the French are appearance obsessed and particular about dressing up and looking their best always - even to take out the trash in their own apartment building. This, among other reasons, is why I could never live in France. But, I did appreciate Lebovitz's observations about French women and their love of chocolate, as well as how not to offend the French when you only speak English. He is quite funny and doesn't take himself too seriously - though he clearly places a great deal of importance on fine cooking and dining. Each of his chapters includes several recipes that go with the story he's telling - few of which actually consist of French food. I tried out a couple recipes that turned out really well - and were not at all difficult to make for an amateur cook like myself. I loved the tomato-bread salad and chicken tangine with apricots. I also made a very easy recipe for chocolate yogurt snack cakes, which turned out a bit dry, but were quite tasty with some vanilla ice cream and strawberries. I do like Paris, but what I really love is this encouragement to savor friends, food, and life. I will remember this lesson every time I return to one of Lebovitz's recipes.

Japanese Women Don't Get Old or Fat - Naomi Moriyama

In the past couple months, my husband, mother, and I have vowed to start eating better. To that end, we've tried to cut down on meat - and explored many vegetarian and vegan options. This new world has also awakened in me my desire to cook more often. I've looked high and low for inspiration, and while browsing the cook books at the library, I came across this book. I don't particularly like the title, but it appeared to be about a Japanese woman in America who returned to Japan to learn to cook from her mother - in the hopes of regaining her health. The book is about the Japanese love of food - but their ability to enjoy the best and freshest ingredients, appease their hunger, remain thin, and live long and happy lives. Moriyama was a bit repetitive in her writing - using the same phrases and anecdotes multiple times throughout the book, but I did appreciate her inclusion of various recipes that can be made fairly easily. One night, she inspired me to cook spicy beans and tofu, along with a ground beef and egg recipe. Both were delicious, and gave me something new and relatively healthy to serve my family. While there was nothing earth-shattering in this book, it was a good reminder that to enjoy food doesn't necessarily mean to be a glutton, and that everything in moderation is a good thing to remember.

Medium Raw - Anthony Bourdain

The good thing is that having a newborn in the house hasn't slowed down my reading too much. The bad thing is it hasn't left me much time to update the blog...so I anticipate that in order to keep up, my posts may be a bit short for awhile. Ever since Kitchen Confidential, I have been a big fan of Anthony Bourdain...I've enjoyed some of his other books and really like his Travel Channel show, No Reservations. But, as Bourdain's popularity and fame have increased, his edginess has definitely taken a dive. Luckily, however, Bourdain recognizes, and seems to despise this, about himself. Medium Raw is a collection of unconnected essays about Bourdan's various experiences in the food industry. My favorites included his lengthy description of his best meal at French Laundry and his reverence for its chef, Thomas Keller. I also appreciate Bourdain's willingness to be straight-forward, even at the expense of offending iconic figures such as Alice Waters. My impression is that Bourdain may not be a favorite among his peers, but there is no question that his humor and honesty will make him a favorite among readers for a long time to come. While this collection does not represent Bourdain as his finest, there are still gems of entertainment, and it's worth skimming through to hit on some of the best in travel and food writing around.

Farm City - Novella Carpenter

Over the past couple years, there has been an obsession in the Bay Area (and perhaps all over the country) with locally grown food, farmer's market, and eating responsbily. Michael Pollen and Barbara Kingsolver have definitely contributed to this movement and encouraged a lot of people to think differently about where their food comes from. As part of this, I feel like not only do I know a lot of people who only buy organic and local, but I also know more people who have taken to growing and raising their own produce and poultry. I attribute some of this also to people wanting to feel more connected to work - and feeling like what they do has tangible consequences - something that doesn't exist for many people these days (as opposed to in the days of farmers). Farm City is the non-fiction account of a woman in Oakland who has taken to heart the desire to be closer to her food - not only does she start her own vegetable garden in the heart of Oakland's toughest neighborhood, but she raises turkeys for Thanksgiving, and a pig that brings her into contact with one of Oakland's most famous chefs - and her future teacher of how to make her own salumi. Carpenter's experimenting is interesting to me - mostly because I live in Oakland, and cannot imagine attempting to create such a rural environment in such an urban setting. She didn't make me want to go out and buy my own chicks to raise, or to commit to growing my dinner - mostly because everything she did seemed so hard! But, she did engender an appreciation in me for the work that farmers and ranchers are engaged in - and it's always good to remember to be a bit more mindful of what we put in our bodies, and what we often sacrifice in the name of convenience.

Born Round - Frank Bruni

After reading Ruth Reichl's memoir Garlic and Sapphires about her time as the restaurant critic for the New York Times, I was interested in reading Frank Bruni's memoir about his time in the same position. Bruni's story, however, was about so much more than enjoying great food and telling the world about it. Rather, Born Round is about Bruni's life long relationship with food. As a child, Bruni was always "big boned." His Italian grandmother and mother fed his insatiable appetite, and in his efforts to get skinny despite his addictions, Bruni developed a frightening eating disorder - which surely would been much more noticeable and seriously addressed by his family and friends had he been a young woman. Bruni tells in excruciatingly painful detail about his unbelievably binging, and his subsequent purging. He explains how he lost out on friends and potential love because of his fear of being seen as anything less than perfect, and his disbelief that anyone could love him unless he were thin. Despite Bruni's challenge with food, he agrees to take on the position as the New York Times restaurant critic. His acceptance of the job almost seems self-destructive, but somehow he finds a way to not only manage it, but to excel at it. Bruni honestly portrays the hard work he did physically to get himself in the shape he wanted to be in - but it's unclear, and I would have been more interested, in learning about his psychological work. While it's obvious that he gains self-worth with each pants size he loses, it's not clear that the reasons he delved into his excessive behavior in the first place were ever confronted or resolved. As with many memoirs, this book was difficult to read at times - Bruni's behavior is so obviously designed to deny him the very happiness that he seeks. And for anyone who loves books about food - the beautiful enjoyment of gourmet feasts and the fun of enjoying a meal with friends - this is not quite the right book. There are certainly glipses of this throughout - but mostly this is a book about the pain associated with eating, what happens when food is used as an emotional substitute, and one man's tremendous journey to see himself as more than just the food he eats.

Gourmet Rhapsody - Muriel Barbery

Like vampires, food seems to have taken the literary world by storm, and while I am bit burned out on books about critics and chefs, I find that I keep reading them. But, the truth is, I had no idea what this book was about when I bought it. I didn't care because I found Barbery's second novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog so beautifully written that I wanted to see what her debut novel was all about. Gourmet Rhapsody is the story of the life of Pierre Arthens, world renowned and nearly universally despied, food critic. On his deathbed, Arthens becomes consumed with finding that one flavor that will satiate him before he dies. It is something he can just barely remember from his past, but can't quite grasp on to - and so the chapters walk through his memories of fine meals and perfectly executed dishes in an effort to remember. In between Arthen's memories are the memories of his children, his wife, his mistress, his cat, the homeless guy he passed everyday on the way to work...and their recollections and feelings of the selfish man who never looked at them as anything more than a hinderance or a means for obtaining what he himself wanted in life. Monsieur Arthens is a horribly ugly man, but his appreciation for food is truly delightful. I lost myself in Barbary's descriptions of Arthen's favorite flavors, in particular those of his favorite ice cream and sorbets. Gourmet Rhapsody is like a fine meal - enjoyed in one sitting, but appreciated slowly and with great attention to detail.

Julie & Julia - Julie Powell

Given the recent release of the movie "Julie & Julia", this book seems to be everywhere. I tend to enjoy books about food, and I don't know anything about Julia Child, so I decided to check it out before watching the movie. The book is a year in the life of Julie Powell - a temp living in New York, married to her high school sweetheart. Confused about what to do with her life, and feeling as if she has accomplished nothing, Powell decides to cook all of the recipes in Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She keeps track of her successes and failures through her blog which slowly gains a loyal following. Between chapters, Powell includes short vignettes of Child's imagined life. These interludes, however, did not add much to the book as far as I was concerned. And while the premise of the book seems fun and interesting, mostly I found Powell herself self-absorbed and whiny. She repeatedly gushes about how she has the best husband in the world and she does not understand how she got so lucky. After reading the book, I have no idea either. As for the recipes themselves, she appeared to make them with no rhyme or reason. Once in awhile she would throw a dinner party, but other times she just seemed to be slogging through them - and because the vast majority of the recipes hardly sounded appetizing, the whole thing just seemed to be a convoluted plan for having something to do, just to have something to do. If it weren't for the fact that this book has become a bestseller and the basis for a major motion picture, I doubt that I would have read past about page 50. I have heard that the movie, which is also based on the book My Life with Julia, focuses more interestingly on Julia Child herself. Often after I'm done reading a book, I go back and read the quotes on the back cover to see if I agree. This one proclaimed that it was "laugh out loud funny." I found it more nails on chalkboard cringe-worthy. And the second quote, I believe from the Washington Post, noted that it was a "pretty good read." With all the authors and publications out there providing quotes for books, the fact that the one featured on the cover can only muster a "pretty good" kind of sums up my feeling about the whole thing. I think I'll wait for the movie to come out on DVD.

Garlic and Sapphires - Ruth Reichl

I have reviewed Reichl's two previous books Tender at the Bone and Comfort Me With Apples. This one is probably my favorite of the three, and the most focused on Reichl's job as the restaurant critic for the New York Times. Early on, Reichl realizes that her photograph is up in every NY restaurant, and that if she wants to have an authentic experience, she will need to adopt various costumes and personas. As she dons wigs and thrift-store clothing, even her closest friends and co-workers can't make her, but without hesitation, her five year old son runs to her everytime. While Reichl adjusts to the fame and power of her new position, and its constraints on her time, I found her nods to her relationship with her son to be some of the most touching, and not overplayed, moments in the book. The incidents with her husband, however, left me a little more worried for the family situation. In each of the chapters, Reichl recounts her experience at a given restaurant, she includes her actual reviews, and a few recipes of her own. At times the book is a bit too repetitious of the actual reviews - though it was interesting to see how Reichl transformed her numerous visits to a given restaurant into one review. At times Reichl seems a bit full of herself, but this actually becomes part of the memoir. When her husband warns that she is becoming the obnoxious person she once made fun of - Reichl is forced to evaluate whether her myriad costumes are meant as a disguise from the restaurant owners or from her own self.

Toujours Provence - Peter Mayle

I meant to read Peter Mayle's memoirs of his transplanted life in Provence in order - but I misplaced A Year in Provence, and picked this one up from my mom. Mayle focuses generally on being an outsider in France (he is British), and how he and his wife go about becoming accustomed to French life, and the quirky adventures and misunderstandings they have along the way. Mayle has a wonderful sense of humor - and reminds me a great deal of Bill Bryson (though a little more refined). Each chapter stands alone - though once in awhile there are references to earlier events or characters. As he is in France, my favorite chapters focus on food - and there are a few in this book about the French obsession with truffles. I love hearing about Mayle's experiences with 5-course meals in Michelin rated restaurants, and his unassuming finds in little known bistros or makrets. It never makes me stop wishing for that 3-hour dinner, filled with new discoveries of flavors. There were a few chapters in here that failed to hold my attention, but overall since I'm not traveling right now and don't have the time to immerse myself in another culture, reading about someone who has done so with so much enthusiasm is a close second. I need to sort through my books and find A Year in Provence so I can start this journey properly from the beginning.

Comfort Me With Apples - Ruth Reichl

I love reading and I love eating, so I tend to enjoy these books about wonderful foods. Reichl's memoir begins at her co-op in Berkeley. She's married to Doug, an up-and-coming artist, and is determined to make her own way as a restaurant critic/food writer. Doug's passion takes him all over the country, while Reichl finds herself in the food meccas of Los Angeles and Paris. With their communication strained, Reichl seeks fulfillment through various affairs. The book follows Reichl's rise to the top of the criticism game, as she befriends the likes of Alice Waters and Wolfgang Puck. The descriptions of her incredible meals - and the recipes at the end of each chapter - left me wondering how it is that she doesn't weigh 500 pounds. The narrative about her personal life - the men she sleeps with and her desire for children - while they make her in some way more human and real, also reveal that she does not appear to have much ability for self-reflection. And, the man she ends up with in the end is so selfish and infuriating, I was certain she was setting up her anecdotes for a huge break-up and acknowledgment of his enormous faults. But, maybe she is saving this for her next memoir (which is also sitting on my shelf, thanks to my mom). All in all, Reichl's personal life was a bit of a distraction and a disaster, but such is usually the case with people who have interesting and successful professional lives. For people who like reading about decadent meals, it's certainly worth sifting through all the relationship nonsense to get to. And, there is a very heartbreaking section on Reichl's attempt to have children and her experience with adoption that is painful, but courageous.

In Defense of Food - Michael Pollan

The down-side of this book is that it's a lot of the same information/message I felt that I got from Pollan's previous book, The Omnivore's Dilemma. The up-side is that it's about 300 pages shorter. I think I'm a little saturated with books on food politcs (pun intended!), so I probably didn't get as much out of this as I would have had I waited another year or so and then read it as a refresher crash-course about how getting back to the source of real food is the key to healthy and nutritious living. Pollan provides a lot of background about how we got to where we are with food - and our mega-grocery stores with so many pre-packaged and processed items. Ultimately, he recommends shopping around the outside of the store (where the produce and meat hang out) and avoiding anything in the store that your great-grandmother would not recognize as food. It is excellent advice, but as with most things organic and health-oriented, there aren't a lot of suggestions for those of us who are pressed for time - and don't just feel like eating salad or baked chicken. But, I think we can all use more reminders to be more thoughtful about our eating - whether it's about how nutritious the things are that we put in our mouths, or about what the choices we make mean for the environment and for the animals that we consume. That being said, I just really love chicken nuggets. Bad food habits are hard ones to break, but with Pollan's help, I'm just taking it one meal at a time.

Bento Box in the Heartland - Linda Furiya

The most amazing thing about this book is that it is about growing up Japanese in the United States and my mother does not already own it! What a find! Linda Furiya is second generation Japanese-American born and raised in Indiana. As the only daughter in the only Asian family in town, many of Furiya's experiences and heartaches are predictable - the kids at school make fun of her slanted eyes, the people in town mock her parents' accents. But, she finds a different lens through which to view her experiences. In becoming conscious of her own identity, and reconciling her desire to belong with her love for those things that make her different, Furiya tells her story through her family's obsession with food. At the end of each chapter, she includes a recipe for a Japanese comfort dish - and she demonstrates how for Japanese families eating is a way of coming together, enjoying life, and showing your love for one another. In this way, Furiya's book for me was a wonderful remembrance of growing up in my own family - where I often spent the day looking forward to the meals I knew my mother would make for dinner, the special days when we made bento lunches, New Year's mochi, and all the summers with my grandparents savoring teriyaki and manju and hiding from the tsukemono. Furiya's parents had an arranged marriage - her father was a POW during WWII, and both her mother and father lost parents while still very young. In this way, as well as in living so isolated from the rest of her extended family, Furiya's life is nothing like my own. But, her desire to learn more about her culture - including an amazing trip to Japan with her mother - was very comforting to me. Furiya is a good writer - though at times her story is not as linear as I would have liked - though this is necessarily because so much of her memoir is a demonstration of how she reacted as a child (often embarrassed of her parents) in contrast to what she has come to appreciate of her heritage. Mostly this book made me miss my grandparents (but very grateful for all the time I spent cooking with them) and crave sushi with wasabi hot enough to clear out my sinuses.

The Nasty Bits - Anthony Bourdain

http://www.anthonybourdain.com/ - This is a collection of essays directly and tangentially related to Bourdain's exploits as the chef of a fabulous restaurant in New York, and his travels around the world eating at Michelin rated venues and off-the-beaten path jewels. Bourdain's relentless rantings are often hilarious, sometimes exhausting, but always (in my opinion) entertaining. I loved his first book Kitchen Confidential, though I've never seen his television show on the Travel Network called No Reservations. I can see people hating Bourdain. He has an opinion about EVERYTHING and he's an arrogant unapologetic drunk. But, I just love the way he describes and enjoys food - from the dirtiest dives in Vietnam to the fanciest dining rooms in France. I wish his books had an index in the back with his favorite restaurants and dishes listed by city. My favorite parts of his book are when he gives "advice" to diners - there's lots of this in Kitchen Confidential - from when and how to order the right dishes on a menu, to how to treat your waiters, to how to send food back to the kitchen, to when to take appropriate smoking and bathroom breaks during the service of a meal. He's the modern day Emily Post of how correctly to eat out in a restaurant. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys the magic of having other people prepare your food for you.

Tender at the Bone - Ruth Reichl

http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780767903387-6 - My friend Anh gave me this book years ago when I was on a kick of reading books by chefs (Kitchen Confidential among my favorites). But, for some reason, I didn't get around to reading this one until now. Reichl is the editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine, and this is her memoir about "Growing up at the table." As she tells the stories of her life, growing up with a manic depressive mother, going to boarding school in Montreal, and surviving in a commune in Berkeley, she includes recipes she loves and describes her unique and constant connection with food. Reichl is a good story-teller, and I look forward to trying some of her recipes. I was, however, deeply disturbed by the portrayal of her mother in the book. Her mother does have a very interesting relationship with food that clearly affects Reichl (and these are some of the best stories in the book). But, like any dysfunctional family, I suppose, she and her father seemed to live in constant denial of her mother's mental illness. Reichl addresses the difficulties of living with her mother repeatedly, but her solution was usually to run away (as her brother did) and leave her father to pick up the pieces. It is a really tragic background to Reichl's life which I would have liked to see developed a bit more - but perhaps this was not necessarily the point of the book. Reichl's next book, Comfort Me With Apples, is somewhere in my shelves and stacks of books at home. I plan to unearth that one soon.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver

http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/ - I was reluctant to read another "food ethics" book so close on the heels of The Omnivore's Dilemma, but since I started at #74 on the waiting list for this at the library, I figured I better read it when it arrived. And, I'm glad I did. This is Kingsolver's (with her husband and two daughters) attempt to live for one year only eating what she raises and grows, and what she can buy from local farms and farmer's markets. Kingsolver is a wonderful writer (she had me laughing and crying in alternate chapters), and the book is peppered with political pieces by her husband, and great essays by her college-aged daughter on nutrition and suggested recipes. There are so many little tid-bits and tips throughout - I kept wanting to grab a pen and paper to write them down or email everyone I know with them (like, did you know it's considered bad luck to say "Thank You" to someone who gives you a plant as a gift? It will cause the plant to wither and die!). Kingsolver's family raises animals to eat, which I would never do - but I am very much going to try to follow her other examples of eating foods in season, and trying my best going forward to avoid meat produced by CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations - or basically any US farm that supplies meat to grocery stores). As Kingsolver's daughter points out in one of her essays - what we choose to eat is one of the most personal decisions a person makes - and no one likes to be preached to in this area. I have always felt this way - which is why I won't preach the miracles of this book to everyone I meet. But, I really truly recommend reading this and thinking about how, if at all, you can change your habits and use your purchasing power to make a difference. I also felt as if there was a lot in Kingsolver's book about just slowing down - appreciating life, family, and friends - and trying to undo so much of what has made us into a "right here, right now" society. It's not just about food, but food is certainly a delicious metaphor.

Life, Death & Bialys - Dylan Schaffer

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781596911925-3: As a child, Schaffer's father left him and his siblings in the care of his emotionally unstable mother. Over 20 years later, his father is diagnosed with cancer, and asks Schaffer to travel to NY to take a baking class with him. Schaffer agrees, and the result is this often humorous memoir which outlines his attempt to deal with hating the dying father he can't help but love. Schaffer must decide if he can forgive his father, even when his father never actually asks for his forgiveness. This book definitely hit home for me, but what made it even more interesting is that Schaffer is a criminal defense attorney who lives just a couple blocks from me and is a friend of a former classmate/co-worker of mine. I thought his book truly captured the frustration of being abandoned by a parent, and coming to terms with the fact that you can still have a need to love someone who you have tried for so many years to stop caring about. Ultimately, Schaffer realizes that he has to make his choices for himself - that he will have to live with himself once his father has passed on - and I found his way of coping very comforting and real. Schaffer has also published two crime thrillers which I look forward to reading.

The Omnivore's Dilemma - Michael Pollan

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781594200823-0 - Books about "food ethics" seem to be all over the place these days. I'd heard so many good things about this book that I was eager to find out what it was all about. Pollan's basic concept is to follow a principal food chain (industrial, organic, and hunter/gatherer) from its basic beginnings to a meal on his table, in an effort to determine what, in a world filled with food that we can eat, should we ultimately be eating. I found the first section on the industrial food chain incredibly boring. Pollan discusses the production of corn in the United States, the general structure of grocery stores, and culminates in a meal from McDonald's. Too much of it was a reminder of Fast Food Nation and "Supersize Me." Given that I already understand that our supermarkets are filled with convenience foods that are pumped full of chemicals, I didn't feel the need to read anymore about what dangers they pose to my body. I almost put the book to the side forever. But, then I moved on to the organic section - where Pollan ventures out to small farms and discusses, among other things, the differences between large-scale slaughter-houses (think The Jungle) and smaller free-range farms. With local farmer's markets, I think a lot about organic fruits and vegetables, supporting locally grown foods, eating without pesticides to protect migrant workers, etc. But, I had never given much thought to meat. My assumption was always that if I choose to be a meat-eater, I have to come to terms with the fact that the animals I'm eating have probably lived the horrible lives that PETA advocates throw in carnivores' faces all the time. But, Pollan showed a very different side - places where animals are allowed to live out their "animalness" - until, of course, they are eventually slaughtered. I intend to find out more about these types of places - which because of their small sizes, will of course produce a more expensive product, but perhaps one that is more environmentally and morally sound. In Pollan's final section, he is determined to hunt his own meat and forage his own fruits and vegetables. This section had a very interesting discussion of vegetarianism - and how one justifies (to the extent one feels the need to justify) being a meat eater. Once I got past the first section, I felt like there was a lot here to chew on. This has made me much more curious about "organic" and locally-produced foods - attempting to determine what is not only better for my own health, but what is sustainable, what is economically beneficial to people I'd like benefit economically, what is good for workers and animals and the environment. For those who are equally interested, I recommend checking out my friend Francisco's blog: http://sflocalfoods.blogspot.com/. It will help you get into the Green Revolution, and on the path to all things healthy and good.

(P.S. Pollan is also from the East Bay, so I found his mention of local farms and food celebrities particularly interesting.)

Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert

http://www.powells.com/biblio/7-9780143038412-1 - A memoir by a woman in her early 30s who has just gone through a divorce and a subsequent all-encompassing and draining relationship. She decides to take a year for herself - to travel and live in Italy, India, and Indonesia (for a year focusing on herself, it only makes sense to choose countries that start with "I"). Her Italian adventure is filled with delicious food (gelato every day), India is spent in an Ashram, and Indonesia is a spiritual journey where she learns to love again. While by its nature, the memoir is self-indulgent and ego-centric, I felt that the overall message of this book was a good one - when times are rough and depression seems to hang over everything, it's our responsibility to bring ourselves out of the darkness, to focus on life, and to be present and happy. I read this while on vacation in Ashland - so felt like I was in a similar space - focusing on appreciating how great life can be - especially if you have easy access to a lot of ice cream (even if it's not quite gelato).