Monday Mix: Fun For Foodies (Part 1)

--by Hanje Richards

I have recently become fascinated by TV cooking shows. I love the competitions, the outrageous, the amazing, and the stunning. This new point of view about the world of chefs and cooking led me to pull this list of books and DVDs for foodies. Bon Appetit!

The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen (Jacques Pepin) - With sparkling wit and occasional pathos, the man whom Julia Child has called "the best chef in America" tells the captivating story of his rise from a terrified thirteen-year-old toiling in an Old World French kitchen to an American superstar who ad-libbed and demonstrated culinary wizardry as the cameras rolled — and changed American tastes.

The Apprentice is an engrossing tale of the modern cooking scene and how it came to be, told from an engaging personal perspective. The story begins in prewar France, with young Jacques cutting his teeth in his mother's small restaurants. Moving to Paris, it offers tantalizing glimpses of Sartre and Genet. In his role as Charles de Gaulle's personal chef, Jacques witnesses history being made from behind the swinging door of the kitchen. In America, he rejects an offer to be chef in the Kennedy White House, choosing instead to work at Howard Johnson's. He then proceeds to make some history of his own, creating a revolution with a band of fellow food lovers: Julia Child, James Beard, and Craig Claiborne. Culinary high jinks and revealing portraits ensue.

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Art of Eating (M.F.K.Fisher) - Fisher’s writing has delighted and inspired generations of lovers of good food and exquisite writing, and this outstanding compilation of her best work is as exciting and engaging today as it was half a century ago. M. F. K. Fisher (1908-1982) is revered as one of America’s best food writers. She was the author of more than a dozen books, and her personalized essays on the pleasures of cooking and eating made her famous.

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Babbo Cookbook (Mario Batali) - Some of the most inspired (and acclaimed) Italian food in the country is served at Babbo Ristorante e Enoteca, Mario Batali’s flagship restaurant in the heart of New York City’s Greenwich Village. Diners in this converted town house have come to expect innovative flavors and artful presentations that make the most of seasonal, local, and artisanal ingredients — all with a sensibility that is distinctly Italian. Now home cooks can re-create these showstopping dishes, just as they are served at the restaurant, to win raves of their own.

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Big Night - Actor Stanley Tucci cowrote, codirected, and stars (along with Tony Shaloub) in this touching and funny parable about two brothers, Italian immigrants, who run an unsuccessful restaurant on the Jersey shore in the 1950s. Convinced by a thriving rival (Ian Holm) that jazz great Louis Prima will be stopping by their eatery for a late dinner after a show, the brothers pull out all stops and spend their last dollar organizing a banquet that ought to make culinary history. (DVD)

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Consider the Oyster (M.F.K. Fisher) - Tribute to that most delicate and enigmatic of foods —the oyster. As she tells of oysters found in stews, in soups, roasted, baked, fried, prepared à la Rockefeller or au naturel — and of the pearls sometimes found therein — Fisher describes her mother's joy at encountering oyster loaf in a girls' dorm in the 1890s, recalls her own initiation into the "strange cold succulence" of raw oysters as a young woman in Marseille and Dijon, and explores both the bivalve's famed aphrodisiac properties and its equally notorious gut-wrenching powers. Plumbing the "dreadful but exciting" life of the oyster, Fisher invites readers to share in the comforts and delights that this delicate edible evokes, and enchants us along the way with her characteristically wise and witty prose.

Consuming Culture: Why You Eat What You Eat (Jeremy MacClancy) - This lively look at our food choices and the effect that culture has upon our eating habits and preferences should appeal to anyone interested in food in its wider context. MacClancy investigates food not as a nutritional substance but as a social, political, and religious element in our lives. Displaying a broad knowledge of both food and culture and revealing a gentle, tongue-in-cheek sense of humor, he discusses taboo foods, vegetarianism, cannibalism, aphrodisiacs, mealtimes, table manners, cravings, fast food, dieting, food faddism, national cuisines, etc., and how they have evolved in different cultures. MacClancy clearly demonstrates the impact that culture has on food and concludes that man is not what he eats, but what his society makes him eat.

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Cooking Dirty: A Story of Life, Sex, Love and Death in the Kitchen (Jason Sheehan) - A rollicking account of life “on the line” in the neighborhood restaurants — far from culinary school, cable TV, and the Michelin Guide — where most of us eat out when we eat out. It takes the kitchen memoir to a rough and reckless place.

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Cooking of Provincial France (M.F.K. Fisher) - Fisher brings authentic French recipes to life in an easy-to-follow way that are still relevant and mouth-watering. She acquired her knowledge of French cooking while living in the South of France and, in this book, Julia Child was brought in as a consultant. The book was created in 1968, and the photography is fantastic; it shows the French sourcing and enjoying their provisions in a typical French way of life.

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Courses: A Culinary Journey - This book showcases Princess Cruises' commitment to excellence in the culinary arts. It is the fruition of an ensemble of experts representing 28 nationalities, who have exemplified the best of the best in food and beverage for more than a quarter of a century. Included are their most frequently requested dishes and special signature delicacies and time-tested personal secrets to both their preparation and presentation. Behind-the-scenes documentary style images unfold in crisp black and white to recreate the atmosphere of sparkling stainless steel galleys and richly appointed dining rooms where chefs and waiters perform a meticulously choreographed production.

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Eat Drink Man Woman - Trouble is cooking for widower and master chef Chu who's about to discover that no matter how dazzling and delicious his culinary creations might be, they're no match for the libidinous whims of his three beautiful but rebellious daughters. A master in the kitchen, Chu is at a loss when it comes to the ingredients of being a father. Every Sunday, he whips up a delicacy of dishes for his ungrateful daughters, who are so self-consumed that they don't see his attempt at showing them love gastronomically. So, as relationships sour and communications break down, Chu concocts a sure-fire recipe that will bring his family back together: He creates his own love affair to rival his daughters' affections! (DVD)

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Eaten Word: The Language of Food, the Food in Our Language (Jay Jacobs) - Jay Jacobs carves up fresh insight into the vocabulary of food. He explains many everyday food-related expressions that pepper the English language and traces how basic foodstuffs like apples and corn, cooking methods like barbecue, and dishes like cioppino and lobster Newburg got their names. Jacobs also serves up many food-slang snacks. He even fills a plate with gastronomic names that belong to baseball players, noting that no other game seems as hungry. A well-seasoned glossary, dubbed "Alphabet Soup," rounds out the book. Culinary and food terms receive insightful, often humorous definitions.

From Julia Child’s Kitchen (Julia Child) - One of the first and most important — and most successful — cookbooks by America's beloved Julia Child. Using a very accessible approach to French cooking from an American point of view, here are recipes and techniques for the beginner as well as the more advanced cook, using easily available ingredients for everything from soups and appetizers to dessert. Black and white line art and photographs throughout.

Here Let Us Feast: A Book of Banquets (M.F.K. Fisher) - This enlightening cornucopia of writings toasts the pleasures of food, drink, and celebration in literature. Eleven chapters present selections varying in length from a few paragraphs to several pages that begin with the ancient Chinese and Greeks and the Bible and progress to the pioneers of America, while pausing to linger in the literatures of England, France, Germany, and Russia (among others). This is a refreshing, nourishing and fulfilling sampler from a connoisseur of a genre she has created.

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In Julia’s Kitchen with Master Chefs (Julia Child) - Unearthing the secrets of 26 great cooks from across the country, Julia Child translates them for the home cook and provides 150 splendid recipes which take full advantage of the exciting new flavors of American cooking today. 110 color photos.

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Julia’s Casual Dinners: Seven Glorious Menus For Informal Occasions (Julia Child) - Planning a large buffet for the holidays? An informal dinner? A barbecue? Julia offers a "Buffet for 19" (featuring oysters and Turkey Orloff), a "Chafing-Dish Dinner," and an "Indoor/Outdoor Barbecue" of butterflied lamb on the grill and homemade pitas. These menus — and four others — are packed with instructions on planning ahead, checking out staples, drawing up a shopping list, timing the meal, varying the menu, and creatively using leftovers. Instructive color photographs serve as a guide, showing ingredients, step-by-step procedures, and the finished dishes.

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Julie and Julia (Julie Powell) - A frustrated secretary in New York City, Powell embarked on "the Julie/Julia project" to find a sense of direction, and both the cooking and the writing quickly became all-consuming. Some passages in the book are taken verbatim from the blog, but Powell expands on her experience and gives generous background about her personal life: her doting husband, wacky friends, evil co-workers. She also includes some comments from her blog readers, who formed an enthusiastic support base. Powell never met Julia Child, but the venerable chef's spirit is present throughout, and Powell imaginatively reconstructs episodes from Child's life in the 1940s. Her writing is feisty and unrestrained, especially as she details killing lobsters, tackling marrowbones, and cooking late into the night.