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SUMMER READING FOR THE FOOD FREAK
A good, fairly comprehensive list over at Slashfood.

I really loved Garlic and Sapphires, found Heat fascinating, and enjoyed My LIfe in France (briefly reviewed earlier this week) so much that I bought it for my mother as a birthday gift. The Nasty Bits ... well, a bit of Tony Bourdain goes a long way. His book Kitchen Confidential is a masterpiece of putting you right in the restaurant kitchen (sans celebrity chef) and I highly recommend it but that's enough Bourdain for me. Gael's Greene's autobiography ... hmmm ... well, the excerpts I've read make it sound as if it's more about bedhopping than food and I just don't care. Two for the Road and The Omnivore's Dilemma are both requested from the library so we will see how they turn out when I eventually reach my turn.

As for On Food and Cooking, I bow to no man in my admiration for the author's achievement but the old and new volumes are very different propositions in some ways as I mentioned in this review.

ODDEST FOOD
Steven Riddle asks:

(1) What is the oddest food you've ever deliberately eaten? (We're not counting swallowed flies or accientally ingested spiders here--this is food that you chose to eat.)

(2) What food do you really, really like to eat but many people around you find utterly revolting?

I answered over there. Go see.

SITTING AT THE KITCHEN TABLE
Doesn't everyone usually gather in the kitchen? That's how it works at our house. Sarah has a wonderfully evocative piece extolling the homey comforts of the kitchen table.

POPPY Z. BRITE'S LIQUOR
Food Bound reviews the first of Brite's mysteries featuring kitchen cooks and eventually restaurant owners. I have read the first two and they were pretty good. I especially liked the way she took us into the kitchen life. Note: her protagonists are a gay couple although there is very little elaboration on that point generally which I appreciated.

CHICKEN LEG QUARTERS BRAISED IN WHITE WINE
Mmmmm ... chicken and wine. Dom and Bella are cookin' and it looks good.

OUR DAILY BREAD
Fugger Nutter is beginning a series which I think is going to be really interesting as it will roll gardening, hunting, cooking and more all into one. Read all about it at his place, but here is the essential focus.
  • The importance of having a family meal.
  • The amount of work and energy that is behind a meal that we tend to forget about in modern Society.
  • The incredible disconnect that many people have between the fact that the meat on your plate was once a living breathing animal that you may have found “cute”.
  • How thankful we are to the Lord for giving us such a beautiful bounty in such troubled times that we may celebrate with these great meals.
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