Russian Cookbook
Author: Kyra Petrovskaya
Easy-to-follow instructions, adapted for modern American cooking, for over 200 mouthwatering traditional dishes: borsch, shashlik of salmon, Russian squab in sour cream, potato kotlety, pirozhki and pirogi, blini, paskha and many more. Also origins of Russian foods, helpful hints on buying and preparing foods, much else. Definition of terms.
New interesting book: Exploring Business or Financial Accounting Fundamentals 2007
United States of Arugula: The Sun Dried, Free Range, Extra Virgin Story of How We Became a Gourmet Nation
Author: David Kamp
One day we woke up and realized that our “macaroni” had become “pasta,” that our Wonder Bread had been replaced by organic whole wheat, that sushi was fast food, and that our tomatoes were heirlooms. How did all this happen, and who made it happen? The United States of Arugula is the rollicking, revealing chronicle of how gourmet eating in America went from obscure to pervasive, thanks to the contributions of some outsized, opinionated iconoclasts who couldn’t abide the status quo.
Vanity Fair writer David Kamp chronicles this amazing transformation, from the overcooked vegetables and scary gelatin salads of yore to our current heyday of free-range chickens, extra-virgin olive oil, Iron Chef, Whole Foods, Starbucks, and that breed of human known as the “foodie.” In deft fashion, Kamp conjures up vivid images of the “Big Three,” the lodestars who led us out of this culinary wilderness: James Beard, the hulking, bald, flamboyant Oregonian who made the case for American cookery; Julia Child, the towering, warbling giantess who demystified French cuisine for Americans; and Craig Claiborne, the melancholy, sexually confused Mississippian who all but invented food journalism at the New York Times. The story continues onward with candid, provocative commentary from the food figures who prospered in the Big Three’s wake: Alice Waters and Jeremiah Tower of Berkeley’s Chez Panisse, Wolfgang Puck and his L.A. acolytes, the visionary chefs we know by one name (Emeril, Daniel, Mario, Jean-Georges), the “Williams” in Williams-Sonoma, the “Niman” in Niman Ranch, both Deanand DeLuca, and many others.
A rich, frequently uproarious stew of culinary innovation, flavor revelations, balsamic pretensions, taste-making luminaries, food politics, and kitchen confidences, The United States of Arugula is the remarkable history of the cultural success story of our era.
The New York Times - A. O. Scott
Without quite saying so - and with admirable lightness of touch for just that reason - Kamp uses food to suggest a broader history, a tale of tastes and trends embedded in the grand epic of American consumer capitalism. In his remarks about dinner parties and restaurant menus, and in his deft gleanings from writers like Gael Greene, Nora Ephron, Michael Field and Ruth Reichl, you can glimpse the anxieties and aspirations of a segment of the native bourgeoisie (boomers, yuppies, bobos, whatever) struggling with the burden of cultural hegemony, and struggling also toward a quintessentially American, defiantly utopian goal, namely the reconciliation of pleasure and virtue. It is not just that we want food to taste good and be good for us; we also, with increasing fervor, want it to be the vehicle and symbol of our goodness.
Publishers Weekly
Kamp, a writer and editor for Vanity Fair and GQ, details the development of fine dining in the U.S. and proves healthy, even exotic food movements are having an effect on our diet. He highlights the great divide between a population that relies on McDonald's and those who savor gourmet cooking. Historically, the rich always had high-end restaurants; the rest contented themselves with recipes in the ladies' sections of newspapers and magazines. But thanks to "the Big Three"-James Beard, Julia Child and Craig Claiborne-America had an eating revolution. Kamp supplies an engaging account of their careers; Claiborne has a particularly spicy life story. While The Joy of Cooking focused on helping housewives keep "one eye on the family purse and the other on the bathroom scale," says Kamp, quoting Irma Rombauer, Beard saw cooking as a passion. During the 1960s, restaurant reviews became respectable journalism and dining out a status symbol. As rebellion turned to affluence, "eating, cooking and food-shopping were symbols for those who considered themselves upwardly mobile." This cultural history makes for an engrossing read, documenting the dramas and rivalries of the food industry. (Sept.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Kamp, a writer for Vanity Fair magazine, chronicles the rise of gourmet eating in America, ranging over the introduction of French cooking, the rise in popularity of the neighborhood bistro, and the growth of gourmet markets and celebrity chefs. While not a definitive history of American eating habits, this book covers the last 75 years of the country's growing fascination with food, food journalism, restaurant reviews, and food television, profiling the "big three" who started it all (James Beard, Julia Child, and Craig Claiborne) and continuing with Alice Waters, Dean and DeLuca, the Zagats, and Wolfgang Puck. Filled with juicy, salacious bits of gossip, Arugula offers readers the secrets of the chefs and restaurants that brought gourmet cooking to the general public. For those who have ever wondered how Americans went from eating mass-produced supermarket white bread to artisanal, organic, whole wheat bread from farmer's markets, this cultural history is essential reading. Highly recommended for all collections. Pauline Baughman, Multnomah Cty. Lib., Portland, OR Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
The fortunes and foibles of celebrity chefs, "foodie" pundits and marketers who caught the aroma of a trend and took it to the bank. Ask a Vanity Fair contributing editor to document a trend and you'll for sure get a people story. Kamp certainly establishes that when talented, tight-wired luminaries atop the food chain are suddenly thrust from the heat of a kitchen into the even hotter media limelight, attempts at profundity often teeter on the vacuous. This, of course, is something almost everybody-but particularly those who have been caught up in upgrading their own food habits to "gourmet" status-can mightily enjoy. But to give the author full credit, he documents the anatomy of the trends as well: the rumblings in the gut of a nation of sloppy eaters who were somehow ready, after World War II's GIs brought Europe home with them, to exalt the Jim Beards, Julia Childs and Craig Claibornes as prophets of nutrition as a classic, personal art form, immediately forgiving any and all quirkiness (including obvious elements of gay orientation) that went with it. Kamp breaks out all the major components: the French Invasion; the American Cuisine backlash; the cleverly seductive specialty food vendors; the back-to-nature organic farming connection. Finally, there is the latest, still controversial move to package the celebrity chef as a national brand too corporate to cook in any restaurant. All the stars are here, from breakfast 'til midnight snack, in a page-turning insider's guide with an emphasis on "dish."
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