A yummy treat even for fans of Sanka and Michelob.
Recipes, restaurant critiques, and food lore—all agreeably season New York Times food writer Hesser’s beguiling story of her two loves: food and the initially unpromising Mr. Latte.
The author’s early reservations about this handsome guy can best be appreciated by urban sophisticates, who will share Hesser’s chagrin as she finds herself keeping company with a man who ends his meal with a latte and sweetens it with Equal. (Espresso sweetened naturally with cane sugar would be culinarily correct.) Their first date is arranged by a mutual friend, and Hesser is not impressed by the venue, a noisy restaurant that serves beer in bottles. She is rather attracted to Mr. Latte, also known as New Yorker writer Tad Friend, even if he does order a Budweiser; he will simply have to be reformed, she decides, if the relationship is to continue. Their courtship and his culinary education go hand in hand as Hesser charts food experiences ranging from restaurants to dinners with respective friends and families. Each chapter, about food as much as romance, includes recipes. These too play to an urban sensibility, as well as the urban ease in acquiring ingredients not always available in the average supermarket (fennel fronds, sheep’s milk yogurt, salt cod, etc.), but Hesser also tells readers how to make such down-home items as fried-bologna sandwiches, rhubarb pie, and fried chicken. The romance proceeds at a stately pace as the author describes visits on assignment or accompanying family to places like Spain, Italy, and North Dakota (where she hopes to learn how honey is made). Soon Mr. Latte shows signs of improvement—his mother is, after all, an excellent cook—as he talks about food and critiques new restaurants. But though he proposes, he also has some changes in mind, and there are a few bumpy moments ahead before his education and hers are complete.
A yummy treat even for fans of Sanka and Michelob.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-393-05196-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2003
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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