redroofcolleen's review
3.0
Though I did enjoy this book, I felt it was only an appetizer to what could have been a glorious meal. "Please sir, can I get some more?"
I will definitely try some of the recipes, especially the lobster rolls. They sound delicious.
I will definitely try some of the recipes, especially the lobster rolls. They sound delicious.
kristennd's review
3.0
This is a very small book, not only a thin one. But although I was thus warned that it would be brief, it was still disappointingly so. Epstein stays away from outright gossip, for which I am grateful, but I really could have used more anecdotes. Easily a third of the text is (tasty) recipes, most involving lobster. There's also a pretty creepy story about a lobster dinner. I will definitely need to try adding duck fat to a burger. There's a chapter on M.F.K. Fisher (recounting her own memoirs; he didn't meet her) that makes me both more interested and more apprehensive about finally getting around to reading her. In a completely different realm, the section on Joseph McCarthy, Roy Cohn and the Kennedys is fascinating, at least if it's almost all new to you like it was to me. Sadly, nothing on Nabokov, although the jacket says he knew him. Esptein was involved in the creation of trade paperbacks (which he mentions) and the Library of America (which he doesn't), so there's so much more literary ground he could cover. Not to mention his time living in Paris. I did love his repeated technique of offering a chef a cookbook contract whenever he enjoyed their food, so that he could get the recipes. He does do a wonderful job of evoking a sense (and love) of place. There is no separate recipe index.
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