Dinner for One: How Cooking in Paris Saved Me

Dinner for One: How Cooking in Paris Saved Me by Sutanya Dacres 352 pages

I enjoy most foodie memoirs/biographies. If y’all haven’t read and of Ruth Reichl’s series of growing up and working around food, I highly recommend them.  They are simply wonderful, as is the one novel she wrote, “Delicious.”

I thought I was getting kind of the same things when I picked up “Dinner for One: How Cooking in Paris Saved Me.” Well, I read, and read, and read, and read, and read. Took me almost a month to finish this book. I was bound and determined to finish it and find that nugget that would have made it all worthwhile. The book contained almost one hundred pages of recipes, so I just knew that it would be unputdownable.

I was wrong. It starts out well enough, with Dacres meeting her husband, who is only referred to TFM (The French Man) through all 352 pages, in the New York.  They had a long distant relationship for three years before they married.  Dacres left everything and everybody she knew and loved to move to Paris.

The honeymoon didn’t seem to last long. Dacres knew no one in Paris, didn’t know her way around, and barely spoke the language. I would have thought that she would try to learn the basics before she moved to Paris, but she didn’t. French is not an easy language to learn, and Dacres didn’t seem that interested. TFM had his own set of friends, was a native Parisian, and a job. Dacres seemed alone most of the time.

Readers must watch Dacres and TFM’s marriage fall apart for more than two thirds of the book.  It got old after a while. Normally I would have bailed, but I was really waiting for the good part.  Mostly after Dacres and TFM separated we had to watch as she drank too much and had a series of one-night stands.

She does decide that she is spending too much of her time trashed and starts cooking, but it is too little too late. There isn’t much about cooking in this memoir and not a mention of the recipes that she includes.  I was extremely disappointed in this narrative, and equally as irritated at myself for hanging on to the very last word, especially since it put me seven books behind toward my Goodreads goal. Therefore “Dinner for One: How Cooking in Paris Save Me” receives 1 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world. 

 

Eat Like Walt

Eat Like Walt:  The Wonderful World of Disney Food by Marcy Smothers   176 pages

I am not a huge fan of Walt Disney. I like some of the movies, but I'm not a die-hard Disney lover. I have been to Disneyland (when I was 5) and Disney World (Epcot when it had just opened), but I don't have a desire to go back to either place.  However, when I saw this book on the shelf in ELB, I couldn't resist. There was something about a book about Disneyland and its culinary history that just sounded too potentially weird to resist.

This was actually a pretty cool book. The author explores the "lore of each land," starting with Main Street, USA to Tomorrowland and explains that while Disneyland opened in 1955, its culinary history went back to 1923 when Walt Disney first arrived in Hollywood. While his own tastes were simple (like, did you know he loved chili so much that he ate it a few times a week?), he knew that food could have an effect on people. Some of the restaurants in Disneyland were so popular that people would wait in line for hours.  Definitely an interesting viewpoint on history. 

I Hear She's a Real Bitch

I Hear She's a Real Bitch by Jen Agg    288 pages

That title catches your eye, right?  It caught mine and I had no idea who Jen Agg is. She's a restaurateur in Toronto who has a number of successful businesses and the title of the New York Times review of this book says it's "A Swaggering, Feminist Restaurant Memoir."

I would agree with that. Jen Agg definitely has swagger and she's completely unapologetic. About, well, just about everything. I found this an interesting read (admittedly, I am a sucker for a restaurateur/chef memoir) and while I sometimes found her writing grated on me, I appreciated that she is completely, honestly, herself. She doesn't hold back, which can make for some pretty funny observations.  She doesn't just write about her life and businesses, but also gives her opinions and insights into how society (not just the restaurant business) definitely has double standards for men and women.  It was interesting to read and I found myself nodding to myself a few times. For example, on p. 239, she writes, "...anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that it's more important for women to appear to be warm, even as they are actually being warm."  That example is from an interaction with a customer, and how that customer's whole communication changed when Agg's male staff member spoke to the customer.

One last quote from the New York Times review about this book: "In “I Hear She’s a Real Bitch,” Agg brags, she swaggers, she writes in great detail about her appetites — for junk food, music, sex. She is also relentlessly digressive — one of the truest signs of robust self-regard. Reading Agg’s book, I felt as if I was spending hours with someone who was pacing and rambling, expecting me to scribble disorderly dictation into my steno pad, stopping on occasion to ask me imperiously: “Are you getting all this?”

I think that's why, while I found this book to be an interesting read, I don't think I'll pick it up for a re-read. A few times, I found her to be a bit relentless, the swagger a bit much, and while I appreciate her honesty, it did feel a little like she was super self-absorbed at times.   Sorry, one more NYT reference which I also agreed with: "I found myself wishing Agg would withhold some of what she discloses. I support talking about sex and cursing, but I gasped out loud at a scene involving spiked grape soda, oral sex and purple puke. Other readers may find such revelations disarmingly open and unedited." 

The Potlikker Papers

The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South by John T. Edge               Audio Book: 10 hours    Hardback Book:  384 pages             

This book is a telling of United States history as well as the culinary evolution of the food grown, bred and served in the U.S. Southern states.   The term potlikker in the title is taken from the days of slavery in the South when a slave cook would stir up a mess of greens, the slave owner and his family would eat the greens and leave what is termed the potlikker or the broth left over from the greens in the pan.    Slaves would use this left over broth to feed their families.     The good news about the potlikker is that it is nutrient rich more so than the greens are so while it may have been the leftover part it was very good for the health of the slave families who created many recipes using this and other leavings from the plantation tables to create wonderful soulful heartwarming and delicious dishes and meals that added to the state of health of the slave families, a  God given benefit added that the masters knew nothing about.    The book balances what was going on historically from slavery times to current day and how the food changed along with the times throughout the South.   After the Civil War some black women began cooking and selling food to their neighbors to help support their families and as word of mouth got out requests increased and these home businesses prospered to the point some families began opening up their homes as restaurants increasing their business even more.   Even local politicians started showing up to sit and chat as they purchased home cooked meals.   Blacks and whites ate together at the tables in these homes.   As the population began to increase and move from place to place,  Cajun and Creole cuisine became popular as recipes were brought from Louisiana  and new spices started turning up in Georgia rues.   WWI and WWII brought in more and more people from various places bringing many more family recipes handed down and by the end of WWII BBQ joints became popular.      Southern whites would purchase food from black establishments but black people were still suffering apartheid when it came to their entering white establishments.   Martin Luther King took up the call to stop discrimination and segregation in the South.    The author tells it like it was at the time citing many examples along the way.    Edge is a good writer who comes from a place of emotion, respect and appreciation.    The story he tells is true to the times – all the times he speaks of and he is as much a teacher of history as a connoisseur of the excellent cuisine that has risen up from the Southern United States.   He brings the story of Soul Food, Home Cooking and Southern Fried all the way to the nouvelle Cuisine and ethnic fusion of groups moving into the South today bringing even more variations to the recipes and ingredients that have always been a part of Southern cookery.   An excellent book,  harsh times and harsh language are covered here with names named and details of actual events given and lots of wonderful dishes and ingredients discussed throughout.  

Dining with the Famous and Infamous

Dining with the Famous and Infamous by Fionna Ross          Hardback Book:  245 pages      

What a great collection of dining experiences and with such notable dining companions!   A fun romp through several gastronomique experiences with the likes of  Alfred Hitchcock, Picasso, Salvadore Dali, Laurel and Hardy, Liz Taylor along with a few of her husbands, Marilyn Monroe, Paul Gauguin & Vincent Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera, Humphrey Bogart & Lauren Bacall, Woody Allen, The Beatles, Bob Marley, The Rolling Stones, C.S. Lewis, Aleister Crowley, Michael Jackson, Louis Armstrong, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Sylvia Plath, Oscar Wilde, the list goes on.   So fun and so well written that you can almost smell the dishes cooking from the avid descriptions.   Recipes accompany each feast described so the reader can really feel a part of the meal.    One would do well to be mindful of the eccentricities of Salvadore Dali – a dining experience I would definetly pass on – Salvadore didn’t just look bizarre – yikes!   And Aleister Crowley liked to startle guests with his “personal” accoutrements served in the victuals he prepared.   Trust me that was a don’t ask don’t eat there affair, too.     It is said of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera that when they kissed lights in the room or in the street would burn brighter, of course Frida’s father told Diego she was a devil, I’m just saying...  From the brandy Frida hid within her skirts in a perfume bottle to the Duck with Black Mole and Huitlacoche Fry, the chilies weren’t the hottest things at their table.   The Beatles were wined and dined by rich and royals alike but when it came down to it the Liverpudlian lads loved their bacon butties, fish and chips and baked beans on toast (all recipes included here).   Who knew Nostradamus was quite the marzipan maker?   The things you learn here will surprise you.   Lots of stories told and facts revealed that I had never heard before – (Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithful – I will never look at a Mars bar the same way again) and several jaw dropping, rapid eye blinking reveals, too.    GOOD BOOK.   Good from the first page to the last.   I understand this is one book in a series titled, Dining with Destiny which I must peruse all the titles.   Excellent read.    Warning, this book will make you hungry at times and you will be forced to go make yourself a knockoff of what the celebrities are dining on.   (But then some chapters…not so much.)

Fairy Tale Baking

Fairy Tale Baking: More Than 50 Enchanting Cakes, Bakes, and Decoration by Ramla Khan      Hardback Book:  192 pages            

My favorite thing about this book was I learned how to make fondant.   If you ever watch the show, “Cake Boss”  fondant is that first thick icing like covering that goes on top of the cake to give the decorater a smooth surface to work on.   No bumpy little crumbs sticking up but a flawless flat surface upon which to build your design.    Also, I think it is funny that the author was originally a successful DENTIST but loved to bake so much she decided to make her real passion, baking, her career.     I just keep getting that mental picture of her in a white dentist coat and her patient digging into a plateful of fantasy goodness of cake with shards of sugar on top from the cover of her book.    It looks so sweet it almost makes my teeth hurt thinking about it.   She does do a great job of walking you through step by step with photos and easy to understand instructions.    Some of her ingredients are new to me.   Edible glue?   Edible metallic paint?     Guess you find those at a shop that sells cake making supplies or perhaps a gourmet grocer.   She has some really cute designs and they are inspiring for us would be bakers to come up with our own twists on the stories.    Her creations would make a Disney princess go, “Wow!”   Loved the book, better still love that she makes such ornate looking designs doable in plain English.    She even offers 3 projects per fairytale.   Sort of for the novice, the baker and the overachiever.   A good book.   If you are looking for great ideas to bring stories to life or celebrate this is a good place to start.   It’s like taking a cake baking class and the intricate icing designs she teaches you how to make you will amaze your family and friends with.

A Table by the Window

A Table by the Window by Hillary Manton Lodge   320 Pages

I got tired of waiting for this novel from the St. Louis Public Library, so I read Book 2 in the “Two Blue Doors” trilogy, Reservations for Two a while back. I had a love/hate relationship with that one.  I posted reviews for it, so you can go peek at my thought, if you so desire.

Still I was interested in reading Book 1 so I could get the backstory.  Basically it’s the story of Juliette and Neil’s long-distance romance. All the other plot points from Book 2 are here: The passing of Juliette’s beloved grandmother, her mother’s cancer diagnosis, the introduction of Juliette’s family members, and the restaurant world/food writing world that Juliette loves. 

It becomes clear the how and why of Juliette learning that the man she called Grandfather may not be her biological ancestor. Still, I think I’m going to have to wait for Book 3 (Coming May 2016, according to the end of Book 2) to have this issue resolved.

I’m glad I read Book 2 first. Maybe because A Table by the Window didn’t pull me in as much. However, I was familiar with the characters, the plot, and the writing style so that may have had something to do with it. 

I give A Table by the Window  3 out of 5 stars.

Reservations for Two

Reservations for Two by Hillary Manton Lodge     305 pages

Reservations for Two is the second book in the “Two Blue Doors” trilogy. I wasn’t able to get my hands on the first volume, A Table by the Window, before I started reading this installment. When I first started reading, I wondered if I should wait to get a copy of the first novel. However, Juliette and Neil pulled my quickly into their story.

Juliette is a food-writer turned restaurateur, soon to open her own place with her brother Nico in Portland.  Neil is a scientist living in Memphis. The only thing they are sure about is that they love each other. Neither is in a position to pull up roots and move across the county. Not only is the new restaurant keeping Juliette in Oregon, but her mother is rapidly deteriorating from ovarian cancer. I never did get how they met, and I think that’s probably in the first book.

They are headed to France and Italy where Juliette is not only spending time with her extended family, learning more about cuisine and her relatives. One of the things that has sent her on this trip is the knowledge that the man she called Grandfather was not her biological ancestor. She’s hoping that some of the family, especially a grand-aunt suffering from dementia, can provide some information.

None of the family seems to have the answers. Yet Juliette finds a treasure-trove of letters between her grandmother, her great-aunt, and even the man who may be her ancestor that were written in the late 1930s and through the 1940s. She photographs the letters into her laptop so handling them doesn’t make them crumble.

Juliette doesn’t have much time to read them with all the things that are on her plate. But beginning about halfway through the book, she starts to dive into her grandmother’s past.

I was pulled quickly into the story. Before I reached page 20, I felt as if what happened in Book One no longer mattered. Reservations for Two is a great read until the end. Then the story just ends; it just stops. I went to turn the page and was greeted by a Reader’s Guide. I was so irritated that I wanted to throw my paperback copy across the room. There’s not conclusion to what’s happening now. There are a few clues as to what Book Three will bring, but I have to wait until May 2016 before it will be published.

I have mixed emotions about whether I would recommend this book to my friends. I LOVED the plot and characters, but that abrupt ending did me in. I hate to inflict that on any reader.

 I received this book for free from Blogging for Books.