An exploratory, celebratory memoir that elevates family repasts.
A combination of a culinary travel adventure and a search for the author’s Italian family’s home cooking.
In a knowledgeable, robust narrative that emphasizes proud traditions, Lust (Italian/Dartmouth Coll.; Pass the Polenta: And Other Writings From the Kitchen, 1998) chronicles her trips of discovery to Italy's backcountry. After years working in a New England restaurant, she headed for Rocca Canavese in the Piedmont, where a sumptuous meal by her mother’s cousin proved to be inspirational. In early chapters, the author details specific dishes from that menu, including gnocchi, braised rabbit, stewed turnips, bagna cauda (a fonduelike dish with garlic and anchovies), and trout baked in parchment. Gastronomic history and the lore behind certain dishes intertwine with memories of the author’s relatives. She also describes her stateside quest to re-create rustic flavors, which highlights the differences in food culture between Italy and the U.S.—e.g., in America, rabbit never took hold as a staple. The many included recipes feature fresh ingredients and minimal steps, with helpful suggestions for substitutions. In the middle section of the book, Lust takes readers to the coastal area of Maremma, where she immersed herself in language study. “To make myself at home at the Italian table would require real fluency,” she writes. Throughout the book, Lust emerges as both an observer and apprentice, and her journey toward an authentic, down-to-earth cuisine is sincere rather than pretentious. Beloved regional dishes and lessons from a skillful hostess make clear the seasonality and intuitive approach of Italian cookery. The final section, set in Le Marche, focuses on foraging, with a dense botanical appreciation that is sometimes dry but reflects Lust's farm-to-table ethos. A mildly humorous essay on the effects of eating asparagus offers a few curious historical references, but its place in the collection is tangential. For foodies, Lust hits all the right notes; she demonstrates abundant love and respect for the food and the people dedicated to making it right.
An exploratory, celebratory memoir that elevates family repasts.Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64313-330-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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