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Softcover 208 pages $24.95	The World on a Plate by Joel Denker Ho lem, again, alderman in Calgary, smiling celestial of ward action, a good deal fatter than Ho Ling 1883... beside Chang Kanadian Restaurant specialty bacon 'n' eggs served by fifteen Chinese waiters... - "East to West," George Bowering. " A broad canvas of the size which, say Tintoretto liked to use and a fist full of broad brushes are suitable equipment, whereas a miniaturist's panel, the size of a small postage stamp is not." - The Oxford Companion to Food (from the definition of Americanc cuisine), by Alan Davidson In a story that encompasses a hundred and fifty years of American experience, historian and food writer Joel Denker shouts out the new American experience with all the florid colour and energy of the chorus of West Side Story. Mr. Denker's chronicle, The World on a Plate: A Tour through the History of America's Ethnic Cuisine, traces the history of America's food, not from the founding fathers in Philadelphia, nor the slave quarters of a Virginia plantation, nor the long houses of the Huron, but from the "new" peoples of America. From fresh off the boat, to fresh at the table, Denker explores the commercial and cultural contributions each new ethnic group adds to the dynamic of American cuisine. These vignettes of how each community spices the melting pot begins, fittingly, at Ellis Island, with an account of the Italian-American community.   A fascinating series of stories unwind as Ellis Island debarkees disperse to face such far-flung foreign places as Miami and San Francisco. Once settled there, community and commonality were expressed "tenaciously [in] their food eating habits, [and] persist[ed] even in the face of the suspicious attitude of locals." The Italian immigrant community tenderly set roots, literally planting in their community, the fruits and vegetables that remind them of the Old Country, while sustaining and enriching them in the New World.   The d'Arrigo family story, although not a typical one, is an illuminating one that reverberates, like a pulse through the body of The World on a Plate. The clan settled in Boston, and freight car-ed out to San Jose, California, where "brocco," initially grown for the Italian community, was making tentative steps into mainstream kitchens. Taking advantage of the longer California growing season, improved freight refrigeration, family outposts throughout the eastern states, and clever marketing, the d'Arrigos managed to provision the Italian communities within the great industrial and commercial cities of the northeast with the tastes of home. Ironically, while inspiring New World sources for Old World tastes, these immigrant growers and grocers not only satisfied the hunger of these far-travelled sons of Italy, but brought a taste of the exotic to the greater community. From this success, the d'Arrigo family grew to control the California Fruit Growers Association and make an impact upon what Italians in America ate, and what America eats.   In each following chapter, a new immigrant company is discussed, from the Chinese "coolies" who arrived during the California Gold rush, to Pakistani cabbies who ply the streets looking for their next taxi fare to provide them with the fare from home, to the knishes of the Ashkenzi Jews, which are like kisses from your bubba that comfort and console. With that at the core of the book, Denker provides a general history and a specific story to each of seven immigrant communities stretching from 160 years to 60 minutes ago, each of which is inspiring, compelling, and so “oh-nonna-don't-tell-that-story-again” familiar. All are as warming as the home fire, each as enlightening as the flame of Lady Liberty's torch. Reviewed by Tony Peneff
Hardcover 184 pages $29.95	Dough: A Memoir By Mort Zachter "Bakeries abounded on the Lower East Side. They churned out breads and rolls- pumpernickel, black bread, rye, kaiser, pretzels, bialys-pastries and cakes... the Sabbath was incomplete without the challah, the beautifully braided loaf." - The World on a Plate, Joel Denker. "Dear God, you made many, many poor people.                        I realize, of course, that it's no shame to be poor.                  But it is no great honour either!                                            So what would have been so terrible if I had a small fortune? The most important men in town would come fawn on me!        They would ask me to advise them,                                   Like Solomon the Wise,                                                     'If you please Reb Tyve.... Pardon me Reb Tyve...'             Posing problems that would cross a rabbi's eyes!                  And it won't make one difference if I answer right or wrong.    When you're rich, they really think you know!"               - "If I were a Rich Man," Zero Mostel How often do we wish that long-lost uncle would miraculously appear with the multi-zeroed solution to all our financial woes and wishes? Money offers the hope that, with it, all ills and ailments will disappear. Problems may be dashed, but new concerns do arise. Stories one was raised to believe are revealed as untrue, leaving one unhinged, uncertain and disbelieving. Such was the case for Mr. Morton Zachter, who in 1995 discovered that the man that he knew to be his uncle was not the man he believed him to be. A simple phone call changed all that: "Hi Mr. Zachter, it's Bruce Geary."... Yes I was Mr. Zachter just not the Mr. Zachter he thought he was talking to. "There is a million dollars in the money-market account..." I was hearing things. No one in my family had that kind of money. The heat had gotten to me. It must be some kind of practical joke.                                                                          A story that sounds like an urban legend unwinds with the familiarity of a family narrative told around the dinner table: the oft recounted, oft revised and the far too oft heard events and incidents that become the story and history of a family. This is the story of Dough: A Memoir. It unfolds with the surprise of rolls of cached dollar bills in cake boxes tucked under the bed of a bequeathed cold-water flat. Slowly and surprisingly, the money dislodges memories and emotions to Mort Zachter that enriches his narrative with the experiences of three generations of his New York City family.   It speaks of a time when life was simpler and responsibilities were more absolute. It was a time when the family economy and the family were one and the same, as the "business" involved the entire family and this "business" was to become the child to the two childless uncles of Mort Zachter. Sacrifice was something not discussed, nor was it compensated for. It was simply expected. It was simply done. It is the battle between these values that Mr. Zachter struggles through as he must come to terms with money that appears in his family's lives and at what cost it was amassed. Anger, resentment, and betrayal ferment and rise as Mr. Zachter confronts the actions, but, alas, cannot confront the actors of the long-past events.   Ultimately, however, Dough is not the "woe is me" berating of a self-perceived victim. It is a piece of cathartic writing that attempts to resolve the anger and pain of the living with the actions and mistakes of the dead. While Mr. Zachter’s healing is succeeded by the writing of this family memoir, the success of Dough is its testament of love and succour that a son has for his parents. Throughout the book, his actions and emotions repeatedly attest to this. This love, and these lessons are with what Mr. Zachter holds his family and their memory close to his heart; a sentiment expressed in the pages of this stirring book. Reviewed by Tony Peneff
Hardcover 320 pages $32.95	A Late Dinner By Paul Richardson “This wine is too good for toast-drinking, my dear. You don’t want to mix emotions up with a wine like that. You lose the taste.” - The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway. “Tripas llevan corazon, que no corazon tripas.” (The stomach carries the heart, and not the heart the stomach.) - Don Quixote, Miguel Cervantes Until my first restaurant job, what little I knew of Spain was limited to the story of Ferdinand the Bull and the elocution lessons from My Fair Lady. Then, at the age of fifteen, I was hired by a Basque gentleman, Valentine Aguirre, who taught me that much of what I thought was Spanish actually was not. The Spanish were not to be prefixed as in Canada, rather one was from Euskadi, Catallan, or Andalluz. Spain was to have a much newer concept of itself as a country than Val’s adopted home of Canada. In A Late Dinner (a term that embraces the unique dining hours of Iberia), Paul Richardson makes a similar discovery and sets out to define and declare each of the provinces that make up Spain. In the way only the English can (that is, with the irony and loftiness of those island dwellers), Paul takes his reader from the discotecas and traditional English fry-ups and stroganoffs of the Costa del Sol, to the simpler foods that were once the standard of each family cocina, yet not the reclaimed versions of such recipes by the Michelin stellas of the nuevos cocinas. During a journey that began in 1982 with an inter-rail pass, a money belt and the attitude of a “callow 19-year old youth,” Richardson survived as all backpackers have before, or since: “on cheapo bar food, things from tins, and wodges of bread with something laid inside of them, but never something to mitigate their ascetic dryness.” Clichéd experience and stale authenticity, though at times comical, made impressions and memories. It was enough, along with happenstance, to bring Mr. Richardson back to Spain, to love and live, making it his permanent home. From the coast to the inland, from season to season, cuisines are sought out and described in a way that unites the famous with the ordinary. Celebrity chefs and housewives alike are bound by tradition and the land to those dishes of the past, but both seek new expressions for the familiar. Richardson, in addressing the food of the Spanish peoples, is also addressing the plight of the urban dweller, who “seems to be caught between the rush to modernity and the comforting slow undertow of old fashioned life and the food of its forebears. On the other hand, it likes to show the world that it, too, can be avant-garde and avant-la-lettre.” It is this tribute to the past, written with both feet firmly in the present that makes Paul Richardson’s narrative so fascinating. He draws a vivid picture of Spain, of what makes it so diverse, and so meritorious of understanding. His success is that his tableau is as vital and vivid as any we can read on a cuisine or culture. It’s a story and history that embraces Espana. Viva Espana. Reviewed by Tony Peneff
Hardcover 332 pages $26.95	Mediterranean Summer By David Shalleck with Erol Munuz "And then went down to the ship, Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and We set mast and sail on that swart ship, Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also Heavy with weeping, and winds from sternward Bore us onward with bellying canvas" - Ezra Pound, "Canto I” " It was not the bankers or merchants of Liguria who shaped its cooking, it was the sailors. They did it long ago and it has not altered substantially since. It is still a sea- inspired cuisine from the time of sailing ships and shipboard life in those days." - Waverly Root, The Food of Italy "Don't try to come in winter. If you have to wear clothes, what's the point? But in summer, the six-mile drive from the centre of the world's most imitated and badly plagiarized fishing village can resemble the hellish ‘confiture’ from Godard's "Weekend." The real players come by yacht and anchor in the bay. The even realer players come by helicopter from their anchored yacht." - William Stadheim and Mara Gibbs, Everybody Eats There Ask any young chef who has slogged through a cold winter of long hours in the heat of a dank kitchen if he or she wouldn’t jump ship for the promise of life on board a yacht, cooking intimate, personalized dinners for a discerning and appreciative family. When the appeal is heightened by such enticing locales as the French Riviera and the Italy’s Ligurian coast, it seems that the kitchens of London, New York or Vancouver could empty over night. Such was the fate of a young New York chef, David Shalleck, who, after four years working and staging throughout Italy, honing his culinary skills and language proficiency, found "the idea of an offshore adventure alluring." The allure draws David to Antibes on the Cote d'Azur and the offices of Annie, a yacht charter agent. Through an interview of common rote answers, some unlikely questions arise regarding the close quarters of crew accommodations (it is later divulged that many crews are sans femmes due to the intimate conditions of the crew's quarters) and if he gets motion sickness. The answer comes with the certitude of a New York landlubber: "The truth came out like a reflex. 'No, I haven't. But I believe seasickness is a state of mind.'" With that assurance Annie sends David off confident that she will have something for him. Seven days later she does. His interview with the owners of "Serenity," il Dottore and la Signora, leads David Schalleck into a five-month journey, a sea route of any thing but the routine. After all, this exactly what la Signora demands from “Dah-vee-day”: no routine. "There is no reason to ever, ever repeat a dish throughout the summer,” she tells him. “We want lots of fish—there is no reason why we shouldn't have fish—we'll be at sea." And la Signora smiles. And with that, David has the job. David next embarks on the challenges of running his own kitchen, or galley, to be nautically precise, learning all the nuances of catering to the needs of an exacting "padrone," while discovering the logistical limitations of cramped storage and galley space. With an international crew, including the irrepressible Rick, to help him get his feet wet (or hopefully not), David learns the ways of a life at sea. The fact that the ship is the top priority came as a surprise to me, as I am sure it did to David himself. As such, David is a crewmember first, galley man second, and must take a position on deck during the most inopportune of moments. Time and timing is something David must juggle as he faces the continual surprises and challenges posed by la Signora and the sea. Catering for inaugural dinners, impromptu lunches, squall sickened guests and near-mutinous crewmembers leads him to realize that he has hardly signed up for a sunset cruise. Although no menu is repeated, the routine of numbing work and repetition with the same crew makes one see how cooking becomes an invigorating act for David. Whether at sea or ashore, inspiration comes to David in the vibrancy of the Mediterranean palette, which makes one envy not only where he is cooking, but what he has to cook with. This love for "la vera cucina," insisted upon by il Dottore and la Signora and instilled by his mentors throughout Italy, imparts in David a sense of confidence in himself. His feelings are whole-heartedly translated in a series of recipes. These are pungent postcards that conjure the smells and tastes of the Cote d' Azur, Portofino and the Amalfi coast. ”Serenity” may be a fitting metaphor for a journey of self-discovery, but the ship and her crew reveal a world no less fast-paced and intriguing than the pages of a tabloid paper. Shalleck's memoir is not a culinary journal, a glamorization of yacht life, or a tell-all of the privileged class. Rather, it is the tell-all of a man who has had the privilege to work in a setting that anyone would love to be in, doing what he loves to do. David Schalleck's book is an ideal summer book for the beach or the boat, as it carries one away to far-off ports. Reviewed by Tony Peneff
Hardcover 272 pages $32.99	Kitchen Con: Writing on the Restaurant Racket by Trevor White "Restaurant critics are like very bad lovers. They only come once a year, they don't care if you're not ready, they leave without saying a word, and then they tell everyone what you did wrong." - Trevor White Of all the food fantasies--bed and breakfast proprietor, wedding planner, dog-biscuit pastry chef, wine taster--I have always imagined the career of a restaurant reviewer to be the least taxing, the most rewarding, and the most fulfilling. My qualifications are the same as what any person could attest to: " I know all about food. After all, I eat it everyday." With the same contempt for the rank and ritual of his own career, restaurant reviewer and Dubliner Trevor White berates, cajoles and ribalds the restaurateurs, the chefs, and the readers that make the restaurant world spin off its axis and onto the pages of Kitchen Con. He reveals the world of bumblers and cons that infect both the food and publishing industries. In fact, he good-humouredly shrugs off any sense of responsibility or ability that food writers are believed to possess. The food critic's ability, he jibes, is limited to "a pen, some paper, and an appetite. Restaurants offer a service, and if you pay for that service you're entitled to your opinion. These are the rules of the new restaurant criticism and of democracy." Exercising his democratic rights, White steps up on his soap-box forum to express his opinions, but makes no claim to impartiality--and why should he? This is a personal recollection of the days and nights he has spent eating and writing in Dublin, in New York, and all over the world. He addresses the archaic nature of the Michelin guide with warm tolerance, as if Michelin were merely an aged aunt, expressing a few misguided opinions (this is ironic, considering that he is a best-selling restaurant guide writer himself). In other words, he is willing to recognize the old-fashioned opinions of the Michelin guide, if not revere them. He also shows no mercy to celebrities and celebrity chefs. Gordon Ramsay of Hell's Kitchen is given a sitting in his own hell for awhile, until Trevor turns to the up-up-and-away (hey, where'd he go anyway?) story of Conrad Galagher. These passages are scathing, yet strangely humane, in their honesty. Trevor White's humanity wanders in and out of his writing with the poignancy of a Greek chorus. He highlights the injustices, perversions, and ironies of the lives we carry out in our privelged places in the world. Food manipulation, malnutrition, world hunger, fast food, and food economy: all are up for discussion and White considers each subject with heartfelt conviction. So much so, actually, that his chapter-long interview with Anthony Bourdain (the original Kitchen Con-fidential) becomes a discussion of whether the chef or diner is the most responsible for the epidemic of obesity in industrialized world. Humour and humility, tempered with scathing honesty, pepper each page of Trevor White's account of his life as a restaurant reviewer. His voice is so different, so varied in comparison other food critics who have written their memoirs, such as Ruth Reichl (Garlic and Sapphires), Gael Greene (Insatiable), or Alan Richman (Fork it Over). It could be due to his youthful exuberance, his stance as a non-New Yorker, or perhaps his Celtic sense of irony (sometimes reminiscent of Oscar Wilde), but White's tone is appealingly both authoritative and self-effacing. He is a wonderful guide to a story never short on surprise, taking subjects both sacred and profane in turn, always with a poignant interpretation. Reviewed by Tony Peneff
Hardcover 278 pages $30.95	The Last Chinese Chef By Nicole Mones "Holding a glass of wine in the right hand, Grasping a crab claw in the left hand, And drifting along in a boat filled with wine, Ah, my life is totally satisfied!" - Jin Dynasty poet (A.D. 256- 420) A life lost. A life found. Such is the discovery Maggie McElroy makes upon receiving a phone call from Carey James, a "distant" work colleague of her deceased husband Matt. News of a pending paternity suit forces Maggie to try and solve the puzzle that arises out of the shattered remains of her marriage. A benevolent editor gives her an assignment to discover the cuisine of modern China by interviewing an American-Chinese chef who is reaping praise in Beijing. Flung across the Pacific, Maggie comes to discover that what is distant is often not so foreign as one might think. In Sam Liang, Maggie discovers her ambassador to Chinese culture and cuisine. He is a chef both inspired and haunted by his family's legacies. Loving and dogged uncles assist him with his quest for the traditional recipes of his grandfather, Liang Wei, the last chef to the last Emperor of China. Sam is rooted in the past, stoically insisting on the differences between China and America, though he belongs to both cultures, and at times affirms the similarities that nourish his spirit and body. Author Nicole Mones is interested in conveying the experience of an American in China through her character Maggie McElroy, the quintessential "every-tourist" who is new to Chinese culture. An experience not unfamiliar to Ms. Mones, who spent 18 years living and working in China at the close of the Cutural Revolution. Her perspecitive on cross-cultural relations is thus very relevant, as she explores the relationship not only between China and America, but also the dynamic between traditional and modern China. From the frenzied pace of rental office space to night club exploitation and exhiliration, Ms. Mones draws the reader into the "laolwai lifestyle" of the expat community--a subject that she addressed so well in her previous work, Lost in Translation. Traditions are revealed with all the clashing inevitability of East meeting West, Old meeting New. Most compelling, perhaps, is the text within the text of Sam Liang's grandfather's cookbook, which provides great insight to all food lovers. Chapters are introduced with passages from Liang Wei's The Last Chinese Chef, which allows Mones to delve into the history and philosophy of classic Chinese cuisine without deterring from the main plot. It simply flavours the pot. Reviewed by Tony Peneff
Hardcover 352 pages $32.50	The Sushi Economy By Sasha Issenberg "You won't accept a guy's tongue in your mouth and you're going to eat that?" - Judd Nelson to Molly Ringwald, The Breakfast Club With this stinging irony, class distinctions both in and out of the classroom are declared in the simple unpacking of lunches. Yuppie and rocker are divided by a simple bento box. Twenty years later, the fashions have changed (and returned), yet sushi has remained constant. In fact, it has moved from southen California status symbol to mid-western mini-mall mainstay. Sasha Issenberg's fascinating tuna-tell-all The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy chronicles the phenomena of a nineteenth-century Japanese street food becoming a fast food and status symbol in the twenty-first century. Issenberg opens with a scene of the morning bidding at Tsukiji Fish Market in downtown Tokyo, then dives right into the story of sushi. His story ranges from the bidding floor where a blue-fin tuna can fetch thirty thousand dollars, to the hangars of Japanese Airlines, and to such outports as New England and Nova Scotia, whose fisheries have enjoyed a boost in revenue, albeit a now-diminishing one. Still, thirty years ago, much of it would have been trucked to the city dump as land-fill. In the world of sushi nowadays, the feats are dazzling, the money involved staggering, and the story entrancing. The history of tuna in the context of globalization begins in the mid-nineteenth century, with Japanese gold-seekers immigrating to California. The state's (and then the nation's) economy rose to meet the new immigrants' demands for the foodstuffs of home. This trend carries on today, but beginning in the 1960s (after the liberalizing of the Immigration Act in 1965) sushi also became a symbol of a new Japan. With its "economy doing well, the post-war Japanese in America came with per diems and the tastes of Japan's wealthy elites." With rich, timely examples, Issenberg shows how sushi culture transformed during the time between the American occupation of Japan and the Japan's current "occupation" of America and its influence on the American restaurant scene. The story of Nobu Matsuhisa, further mirrors the growth of sushi worldwide. Unable to grow his business in Japan, Nobu moves to Peru, improves by learning from the local restaurants and markets, leaves his imprint, then leaves altogether. Since his departure he has gone on to influence a new elite class and a new generation of  chefs outside the samuraii-like hierachy of the traditional sushi apprenticeship. The example of Nobu illustrates the corporate and the cultural tentacles sushi has. People hunger for the food. Its philosophy of fresh appeals to all sensibilities. Unfortunately, its demand for fresh fish taxes the husbandry of the seas. Issenberg examines issues such as fish quotas, poaching, and tuna corralling and farming. On these last points, he reveals an aspect of the tuna industry that I was fairly ignorant of: tuna corralling and farming now extends from Port Lincoln in Australia to the Baja in Mexico and throughout the Mediterranean, all to satisfy our hunger for the tuna. Sorry Charlie. By off-shoring of butchery, the origin-labels are confounded, allowing poached tuna to enter the market place. Once again, sorry Charlie. No apologies are required for the book, however. It's an ambitious and far-ranging undertaking, but Sasha Issenberg successfully spans the international date line to give a global perspective of a fish and of a dish that rests at the corner sushi bar. Highly informative, highly readable, and very enjoyable. Reviewed by Tony Peneff
Hardcover 160 pages $19.95	Joy of Drinking By Barbara Holland For the Curse of Water has come again because of the wrath of God, And water is on the Bishop's board and the Higher Thinker's shrine, But I don't care where the water goes if it doesn't get into the wine. - G.K. Chesterton Three-bottle a day men, Blue-Ridge moonshiners and teetotalers. All are present in Barbara Holland's latest book, The Joy of Drinking, a rambling reflection on the world's oldest pastime. With a bartender's frankness and wit, Ms. Smith serves out information and observations on drinking throughout human history. As the cultivation of civilization by way of the plow began, Holland argues that "agriculture, drink and social life walked hand in hand. We moved our living quarters closer together, learned to work and play together. Had a few beers." Holland fortifies such irreverent truisms with facts and stats, addressing religion, politics, economics and empire in terms of their relation to "drink," which she considers the "the social glue of the human race." A glue that at times has left society "unstuck": the numbing and dumbing of Rome through lead plumbing; the bedlam of London's Gin Alley; the kick-up-your-heels excesses and contradictions of American Prohibition. When considering the toll of human suffering left by alcohol, Ms. Holland narrows her view to examine the consequences of excess, such as the proverbial morning after (better get a  leash on that dog, rather than drinking the hair ot the dog that bit you) and alcohol abuse. While these passages are affecting, Holland does not debase nor disavow her love for the social story of alcohol, the company of others that drink fosters. The greatest charm of Barbara Holland's Joy of Drinking is her lament for the social loss that has come with today's neo-puritanism. Coffee shops and health clubs do not have the charm of the bar or tavern. Interaction is not often a part of the experience. "There are no good milk-drinking songs," Holland bemoans, commenting that "social life has quieted down considerably," which gives us all the more reason to "embrace this book, embrace each other, embrace a glass." Reviewed by Tony Peneff
Hardcover 256 pages $27.50	Tea: The Drink that Changed the World By Laura C. Martin " Women are like teabags, we don't know our true strengths until we are in hot water." - Eleanor Roosevelt (1884- 1962) Turkey, Gun Powder and Cutty Sark.* What do these disparate things have in common? Open the pages of Laura C. Martin's latest book and you will discover the fascinating story of a common-looking bush that is anything but ordinary. Tea: The Drink that Changed the World unravels a story with near-myth like beginnings some 5000 years ago in China. There is archaeological evidence to prove what an ancient art tea-making is, but this doesn't make Ms. Martin's riddle--posed in an M.F.K. Fisher-esque fashion-- less compelling: "Why on this particular day did our prehistoric ancestors pull leaves off the tree and put them into a vessel filled with hot water?" From China to Japan to India, from  monk to Emperor to Everyman, Tea examines the growth of a plant, along with its ensuing popularity, influence on political and philosophical thought, and role in the growth of economic and national empires. Who would have imagined that opium wars and the American Revolution swirl in every cup of Lipton's tea? (Yes, Thomas J. Lipton is in here, as is Thomas Twining.) World culture is steeped in tea, writes Martin, as she describes the sweet tea of the southern United States, the Shogun tea houses of sixteenth-century Japan, and high tea, that most quintessentially British of all British "dishes." What makes this chronicle so fascinating is the way in which Martin layers the history of tea itself with the social fabric woven around it. For example, in discussing the rise of the "cha-no-yo" (Japanese tea ceremony), to a high art form, she describes the steps in the tea-making process as well as the complex ceremony. The book also contains an exellent discussion of tea processing, tea styles, tasting notes of different varieties, food and tea pairings, and appropriate teas according to the time of the day. Her work is made all the more vibrant by her offering of a range of web sites to satisfy the curious tea-imbiber, as well as a selection of tisanes to make and enjoy at home. (Talk about savouring the written word.) Marginal notes, personal illustrations, witty and provoking quotes, and period lithographs combine to provide an exhilirating brew for all who enjoy tea. Is it four o'clock yet? * Turkey is the largest per capita consumer of tea at 2.5 kilograms per annum. Gun powder is a variety of green tea named for its pellet shape and strong body. Cutty Sark was a tea clipper capable of carrying a million pounds of tea as its cargo. Reviewed by Tony Peneff
Hardcover 400 pages $35.00	Alice Waters and Chez Panisse By Thomas McNamee "When eating fruit, remember who planted the tree; when drinking clear water, remember who dug the well." - Vietnamese Proverb Those who came before us are the source of our inspiration, instruction, and motivation for--and as often against--all that we do. Personal progress is not always measured in days or seasons, but sometimes in the decisions of a moment, which can be a turning point in a lifetime's course. Alice Waters and Chez Panisse pivots around just such a turning point, while author Thomas McNamee tells the story of a woman whose open heart and open mind opened the eyes of the public to the traditions of France and the potential of America. McNamee descibes Waters as a fascinating contradiction: "She is not a chef, yet she cooks;" she is not a business woman, yet she has a thriving restaurant; she is not a politician, yet her example has changed civic and state policy; she is not a celebrity, but she is celebarated. In this case of this book, the subtitle perfectly describes the story: The Romantic, Impractical, Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food Revolution. Forty years later, we can see the impact of this revolution in kitchens and cuisines throughout North America. Imagine how profoundly our culinary landscape has been shaped by mesclun greens, goat cheese, wood-fired pizza, spit-roasted chicken, Jeremiah Tower, Judy Rogers, Joyce Goldstein, open kitchens, nightly and sesonal menus, local ingredients and local purveyors, Acme Bread Company, Stars Restaurant, Zuni Cafe, Yale Sustainable Food Project, Slow Food International, and the Daily Bread Project. Each of these dishes, people, events, and places have somehow been touched by the hand of Alice Waters. This book is a compelling look at the dynamic impact Alice Waters and the Chez Panisse family have had on social attitudes towards food. Ms. Waters' efforts deserve to be chronicled and Thomas McNamee earns much credit for doing so. It is a testament to the power of the experience, the individual, and the shared belief. A book such as Alice Waters and Chez Panisse should be read by social and culinary historians, restaurateurs, young chefs, educators, and community leaders, who can then determine to what we have achieved and what we must continue to strive for. This is truly so much more than a book, and so much, much more that a restaurant. Reviewed by Tony Peneff
Hardcover 223 pages $32.95	A Pig in Provence: Good Food and Simple Pleasures in the South of France By Georgeanne Brennan In Waverly Root's milestone 1958 book The Food of France, he writes, "The most magical of all of the provinces is Provence, the basis of the national culture. Here nature and man are in closer harmony. You cannot live there without becoming conscious of the vigorous pulse of the south." Nearly half a century later, Georgeane Brennan explores the "good food and simple pleasure of the south of France" in her book A Pig in Provence. A recollection of half a lifetime spent in France, each of the eight chapters in Georgeanne's memoir draw inspiration form a defining ingredient or dish of Provencal cooking. She begins her odyssey with chevre. After settling into a rented farm in a rural village, Georgeanne, her husband Donald, and daughter Ethel purchase a herd of goats, recognizing that a livliehood can be wrought from these creatures. Only if Georgeanne can master the cheese-making, that is. Soon, with the help of her neighbour Madame Lacoste, Georgeanne's cheeses are no longer tossed on the compost, but are instead the toast of the village. Through her enthusiasm as a student, as well as the enthusiasm of her "teachers," Georgeanne learns the pulse of the seasons and their flavours. From their landlords and friends Georgette and Denis, the American family is soon familiar with "the foodways of of rural Provence: the ways to grow and harvest, to gather and clean, to cook and preserve, and to celebrate." Readers will want to celebrate right along with them, belt straining in sympathy. Time and again Georgeane speaks of celebrations that revolve around the table: holidays, birthdays and weddings, all punctuated by food. Whether it's a bouillaibaisse or soupe au pistou simmering away for the next national holiday or family gathering, on each occasion the meal is an even greater source of joy than the event that has ostensibly brought people together. Georgeanne becomes more and more of the land, so much so that when she returns home to California, she begins turning to the regional dishes that bring her back to her beloved Provence. Thyme, fennel, and garlic perfume each page of this sensually evocative book. The effect is stronger still if one attempts the post-chapter dish. These tried-and-true recipes are the perfect culmination of each chapter by this accomplished author. One feels more confident approaching the recipe, now familiar with its setting and the source of its ingredients. Like Georgeanne, we can develop an appreciation of Provencal traditions by cooking our way through them. Ultimately, however, A Pig in Provence is a book that allows us to escape the rain of Vancouver for fairer climes. It takes the reader to a quieter place, rich in story and in flavour. While the eight dishes succeed in enhancing Georgeanne's themes, this isn't a cookbook. Nor is it a travel guide, though it describes the Provencal landscape and people with great love and integrity. Rather, it is a book to toast with a splash of Pastis, then plot, plan, and rejoice in all things Provence. Reviewed by Tony Peneff
Hardcover 275 pages $31.50	Cooked: From the Streets to the Stove, from Cocaine to Foie Gras By Jeff Henderson "I wasn't sure whether the water was supposed to be boiling. I lowered the water to a simmer and added the mix. I waited nervously for the ingredients to gel. If you don't babysit and micromanage the process, a third of your yield can disintegrate," recounts chef Jeff Henderson, not of foie gras, but of crack cocaine. So goes the introduction to Chef Henderson's autobiography Cooked: From the Streets to the Stove, from Cocaine to Foie Gras, as he swings beteen a  near melt-down foie gras tasting menu/job interview and the volatile profit margins of overcooking a recipe of crack. Jeff Henderson begins by depicting the hustle of the streets of San Diego, where as a youth he was mentored in the wares and ways of the street hustler. An astute and ambitious young man, "Hard Head" Henderson takes the only avenue available to him and so many inner-city men: drugs. Not as a user, but a dealer. For that was where the money was, and with money he could satisfy his hunger--the unending, gnawing hunger of poverty--and escape the ghetto. With clear, powerfully simple accounts, Henderson plots his rise to success with the mercantile objectivity of a junior commodity trader, until he is arrested and, despite his self-perceived immunity, imprisoned. Once there, Henderson weaves between Cripps and Bloods and Cholos. Living his "blueprint of staying out of everyone else's mix," Henderson turns to education, self-awarenes, race consciousness and ultimately redemption in the prison kitchen. Challenges do not cease upon his release as he struggles to integrate himself into a society he never knew, while being forced into the role of a stereotype (a black ex-con). Perserverance and faith in God, his family and himself carries Chef Henderson higher and higher, in spite of prejudices and limitatations to success. Chef Henderson's success, however, lies in his attempts to repair the dammage done. He makes a dedicated effort to become a better father than he or his own father had ever been. He mentors inner-city youth who feel drawn, just as he had, to the easy path paved by a 3000-dollar bag of crack, not seeing the ten years in the pen at that path's end. He tells them that it's just not worth it to give up the opportunity to be recognized and rewarded for legitimate work and encourages them to try to stay free of "the kind of drama and chaos they'd known in so many other places through the course of their lives." In this book of powerful simplicity and honesty, Jeff Henderson recounts a life and a path all people should read and learn from. He's a genuine culinary bad boy who learned to walk the line, did the time and now sets an example that we need not repeat the mistakes of the past. Reviewed by Tony Peneff
Hardcover 287 pages $29.95	Roasting in Hell’s Kitchen: Temper Tantrums, F Words, and the Pursuit of Perfection By Gordon Ramsay Ever wondered what’s behind international superstar Chef Gordon Ramsay’s sometimes gruff, rude, occasionally profane, stubborn, and seriously talented exterior? Roasting in Hell’s Kitchen is a candid self-portrait of Ramsay, one of our generation’s most successful chefs. From a tough, troubled childhood, Ramsay has worked hard to pull himself out of a difficult family life (alcoholic father, heroin-addicted brother, a failed soccer career), and found he was good at cooking. He went through many punishing kitchens, learning at every difficult step under many of Europe’s top chefs, to get where he is today. As fearless with words as he is in the kitchen, Ramsay gives us a candid look into his life, his relentless work ethic, and his unerring palate that propelled him to the success he enjoys today—a Michelin-starred empire, television shows, and several books and cookbooks, and “the big house, flash car.” Much of Ramsay’s appeal is based on his fiercely aggressive, egotistical television persona (fairly common in the world of chefs) that isn’t entirely exaggerated. Not so well known is the fierce loyalty that his chefs de cuisine have for him, their longevity and his generosity towards them (some have a financial piece of the action). Roasting in Hell’s Kitchen is a great read, guaranteed to make you think, respect and perhaps even like him, plus open the eyes of those who think he’s a rich, talented, first class ass. Reviewed by Judith Lane, food and wine writer
Softcover 128 pages $12.95	Alimentum: The Literature of Food   Published and edited by Paulette Licitra Alimentum: The Literature of Food, is a tasty, little biannual compendium of food lit sure to delight and inspire every food lover. Publisher Paulette Lecitra takes a page from Seymour Glass in J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye who advises his younger fiction-writing brother, Buddy, to imagine what he’d most want to read and then to sit down and shamelessly “write the thing himself.” In this and other issues of Alimentum, she’s gathered together pieces from authors she most enjoys reading. And so do we. Issues One, Two and Three are on the ‘streets’ and each is packed with a menu of fiction, essays, and poetry from a diverse group of writers on things as varied as Beef, The Absence of everything Else, Grocery Store Divas, A Brief History of Toast, The Twelve-Course Dinner of Regret, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Truffle, and Chinese Restaurant Poems, and other toothsome topics. Upping the pleasure quotient are writers Mark Kurlansky, Ruth Reichl, Esther Cohen, Oliver Sacks and Alexa Raine-Wright and many more riffing on Pancakes, The Soup, Why I Write, and Bean Curd to name a few, whose writings can be enjoyed in snack-size portions or a multi-course meal. Reviewed by Judith Lane, food and wine writer
Hardcover 256 pages $31.00	Stealing Buddha's Dinner By Bich Minh Nguyen "We arrived in Grand Rapids with five dollars and a bag of clothes." Like so many new Americans (and arrivals to the new world) Bich Minh Nguyen's memoir opens with a Dickens-like hope for the future and Lady Liberty's promise for her family, who have fled Vietnam. Upon arrival in the United States, however, the alienation settles like so much snow as father and uncles disappear to work unworkable and unwanted jobs, leaving daughters Bich and Anh to be raised by their stoic grandmother Noi. Never leaving their pyjamas, the girls are in a dream-like existence, neither here nor there, and never fully awake to the babble of emanating from the television and 8-track stereo. The struggle to balance old and new, familiar and foreign, takes on the obvious symbols of their new home: clothes, music, and food. Despite the warm comforts of Grandma Noi's bowls of pho and plates of banh chan, the glowing patter from the television promises more: "Double Your Pleasure," "Mmm Mmm Good," and the many all-American experiences that fast food fantasies offer. The commercials promise the happiness and family order that Bich yearns for. The food not only feeds Bich's emotional pangs--it will also fuel a surge of memories for readers who are her peers. Stealing Buddha's Dinner will trigger an immense amount of emotion for anyone who grew up in the seventies, as food and music memories Bich describes touch upon those self-same experiences. The power of her words are fortified by my own to emphasize that a little Vietnamese girl has much in common with this once-little Canadian boy. Her Pringles, McDonald's, and other fast food memories draw in the reader with a guilty smile. Her childhood books (Little House on the Prairie and Harriet the Spy) and pop tunes likewise colour the story. Despite the echoes of too many ghosts and threat of appearing too much like a National Film Board historical vignette, Stealing Buddha's Dinner is anything but cliché. It affirms the alienation of all those who have left the familiar and struggle to find themselves again amongst the new and the strange. In the pages of a young, shy girl's life, we experience her fears and frustration with her family, her eagerness to be accepted, and the burning hurt and anger of being spurned by would-be friends. Ultimately, Bich gains the awareness and maturity that come with learning to embrace our whole selves. Reviewed by Tony Peneff
Hardcover 276 pages $33.95	The Banquet Bug By Geling Yan What's less welcome than ants at a picnic? Bugs at a banquet? No, but in Geling Yan's new novel The Banquet Bug, a picaresque main character by the name of Dan Dong falters between lay-offs and decrepit living conditions to find his next meal. Ironically, his meal ticket is to come in the guise of being mistaken for a journalist at a public relations banquet where he is feasted and feted, all for the sake of pitching the truth. Dan continues with the charade as each press release lines both his pockets and his stomach. But something begins to trouble him about the false promises of pharmaceutical companies and real estate developers. Through the bitter cynicism of hard-edged reporter-cum-mentor Happy Gao, Dan begins to print more conscientiously as he considers the pressing issues revealed to him between each course. Ms. Yan's writing is rich in the food imagery that Dan regales to his wife, Little Plum. These passages heighten not only the splendour of the "only art that is true to our ancestors," but also the harsh depravity of the modern material world. Is life merely a banquet for the few, while the masses struggle to feed themselves? The author provides fascinating insights into the nature of a rapidly changing China, as well as its manipulation of, and by, the press. Can art be appreciated in a world that only values it as an inch-by-inch commodity? And if so, what of the artist, and the individual? A poignant and piquant book. Reviewed by Tony Peneff
Softcover 282 pages $16.95	French Spirits: A House, a Village, and a Love Affair in Burgundy By Jeffrey Greene Jeffrey Greene’s French Spirits: A House, a Village, and a Love Affair in Burgundy is a must-read for wine lovers, travellers and for anyone thinking of investing in a home in France. It’s a gentle and colourful exploration of a new life in a new land. Greene and his wife-to-be Mary fell in love with a 300-year old presbytery in a small village in the Puisaye region of France and set out to make the old stone “chateau” habitable. The story is full of lively and lovely characters including villagers, trades people, and a questionable ‘antiques’ dealer who manages to unearth a succession of slightly imperfect but exactly right pieces for the presbytery. We witness the couple’s unorthodox marriage complete with a guest list of friends and family from abroad and villagers too. Later they somehow they come through smiling after Greene’s mother literally moves lock, stock and barrel from America, upsetting more than a few apple carts along the way. Of course all the pleasures we expect from a book about rural French life are there: colourful, convivial villagers, animals, feasts and festivals, magical wines and the fresh-from-the-land food. Read French Spirits: A House, a Village, and a Love Affair in Burgundy for the pure pleasure of it and more than a little inspiration. Reviewed by Judith Lane, wine and food writer
Hardcover 336 pages $33.95	My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud'homme I’ve been in love with Julia Child since I was barely tall enough to reach the freezer compartment of my childhood fridge. I would race home after school to watch the original black and white PBS episodes of The French Chef with my mother, who would be scribbling down Julia’s recipes in a small notebook she reserved solely for that purpose.  “Listen to this woman,” advised my mother, while a merry Julia was illustrating how to stuff an apple into the mouth of a whole roast pig.  “She knows the secret to a good life.”   As it turned out, my mother was right. For proof, look no further than My Life in France.  A tender and giddily revealing postwar memoir that – as Julia writes in her introduction - concerns the three things that have always been most precious to her. “My husband, Paul Child, la belle France; and the many pleasures of cooking and eating.”  It is not so much an autobiography as a loving testament to a life well-lived.  What began as a sheltered, stuffy, existence - one that Julia speculates would have inevitably turned her into a bored alcoholic – was saved by the wisdom of following her heart. Love, in all its forms, was Julia Child’s salvation. The book kicks off with the gawky Julia’s liberation from a staunchly conservative family, thanks largely to the unwavering support of an adoring husband who saw a potential in his new bride that few suspected would ever come to a boil.  It is ultimately the story of a late bloomer who flowers under the intoxicating spell of true love.  Along the way, she discovers the lingering rewards of friendship, professional diligence, and the lifelong habit of bravely throwing herself into the culinary and social rituals of other cultures. There is much here to please the devout foodie, including the author’s obsession with devising the perfect American recipe for authentic French bread. That said, a love of the table is viewed as merely one element for a content and happy life.  The other ingredients – passion, perseverance and a relentless curiousity – are given  all the consideration they  so richly deserve.   We should all strive to be more like Julia.  The beauty of My Life in France is that it maps out a surprisingly simple recipe for doing just that.  Reviewed by John Lekich
Hardcover 308 pages $32.95	Don’t Try This at Home Edited By Kimberly Witherspoon and Andrew Friedman While we agree with the editors and the title – Don’t Try This at Home, Culinary Catastrophes from the World’s Greatest Chefs – we heartily encourage anyone with an interest in restaurants and cooking to jump in for a grand and entertaining if occasionally horrific read. What’s more fun than hearing or reading about someone else’s bad luck? As long as it comes more or less right in the end of course. Some of the chefs that share their woeful, often humorous and always entertaining tales include culinary ‘gods’ and legends alike. Famed Spaniard Ferran Adria of El Bulli narrowly pulled it out when the lobsters for 3200 guests went “off” (meaning “that it’s so far gone that you can detect it by smell alone”) mere hours before service. Tamasin Day-Lewis early and of course utterly disastrous attempt to cook ‘gourmet’ meals – pheasant to be precise – before she could barely boil water is shockingly funny; Sarah Moulton’s charred pheasant dinner disaster morphed into cleverly disguised chickens and the guests fortunately none the wiser; a young Marcus Samuelsson’s fiasco with gelatin; Anthony Bourdain’s New Year’s Eve in hell where nobody got fed; and then there were four or five hundred pounds of slithering eels underfoot during service in a kitchen where Chef Scott Conant worked in his early days; a blind line cook, and many more hilarious tales. Have a read, laugh lots, and next time you’re in a restaurant where you know the players, see if they’ll confide a tale of their own. Reviewed by Judith Lane, food and wine writer
Hardcover 197 pages $45.00	Tough Cookies   By Simon Wright   The title – Tough Cookies, tales of obsession, toil and tenacity from Britain’s kitchen heavyweights – really says it all. This rough and rollicking read about some of Britain’s’ top chefs and how they got where they are today is a must for anyone intrigued by the profession or thinking of entering it.   There’s more than a smidgeon of Kitchen Confidential here. In fact multiply it by four – that’s the number of chefs whose experiences are detailed – and you’ve got Tough Cookies.   Bad boy Gordon Ramsay’s always been bad – but he’s an exceptional chef who’s sweated blood, paid his dues and has the scars and accolades to prove he’s earned his place with the rest of the top toques profiled that include Shaun Hill, Heston Blumenthal and Marcus Wareing. All are at the top of their games and dominate the cuisine scene today because of unwavering determination and cruelly hard work. In Tough Cookies, it’s obvious that natural talent will only take you so far. Dealing with punishing hours, harsh conditions, brutal head chefs, low pay, and no life beyond the kitchen unless it was to move to another situation to improve.   “You’d get so delirious you would be trying to light the blowtorch by putting it under the tap, but the hot tap, some strange logic said it had to be the hot tap.” recalled Heston Blumenthal about one of his early restaurant stints where he worked nearly round the clock.   Four remarkable tales, four remarkable chefs.   Reviewed by Judith Lane, food and wine writer
Hardcover 446 pages $27.95	La Bonne Table  By Ludwig Bemelmans The generously illustrated La Bonne Table offers a welcome sampling of Bemelmans’ journalism as well as a tart selection of his culinary-inspired fiction.  (Film buffs will appreciate several scathing chapters from Dirty Eddie.  A cult novel among Hollywood insiders that skewers the self-indulgent dining habits of movie stars.)  And yet – much as Bemelmans delights in exposing the dark underbelly of high-end eateries – he never hides his abiding affection for all levels of restaurant staff.  Somehow his writing always manages to maintain a perfect balance between satire and sentimentality.  Shortly before he died, Bemelmans was asked what he would like to have inscribed on his tombstone. His answer? “Tell Them It Was Wonderful.” Thankfully, the stories and drawings in these two volumes let us all know just how wonderful it really was.   Reviewed by John Lekich
Softcover 302 pages $23.50	Hotel Bemelmans By Ludwig Bemelmans The late Ludwig Bemelmans was a New York-based bon vivant who carried on a lifelong love affair with the pleasures of the table.  Unlike the great AJ Liebling – his closest literary contemporary in style, humour and appetite – Bemelman’s culinary background included an intimate knowledge of kitchen politics.  A native Austrian, the teenaged Ludwig immigrated to Manhattan after shooting the head-waiter at his uncle’s hotel. Not a promising start for someone who would regularly supplement his rollercoaster income from writing and painting with dizzying stints as a waiter, restaurateur and innkeeper. Luckily, nobody has ever captured the bittersweet accomplishment of feeding temperamental hotel guests with such unvarnished grace.   Today, Ludwig Bemelmans is probably best known as the creator of the classic Madeline series of children’s books. (Not to shortchange his legendary series of art deco murals at the Hotel Carlyle’s aptly named Bemelmans’ Bar.) But a couple of newly reprinted anthologies – each focused on his hilarious love-hate relationship with the hospitality industry – should win him a whole new generation of devoted fans. Stretching from the 1930’s to the mid-sixties, Bemelmans’ sparkling stories offer a rare look the golden age of the New York culinary scene. A time when opulent receptions were commonplace. And various slaves to the world of place cards and pickle forks drove themselves beyond despair trying to make it all look effortless.     In his introduction to Hotel Bemelmans, an admiring Anthony Bourdain, calls Bemelmans “the original bad boy of the New York hotel/restaurant subculture.”  A collection of short stories based on Bemelmans’  real life experiences working at New York’s Ritz Carlton, Hotel Bemelmans treats us to the kind of thinly-fictionalized stovetop tyrants who make Gordon Ramsey look like Mother Theresa.  Like Bemelmans’ whimsical illustrations, his perspective on unhinged waiters, explosive maitre d’s, and impossibly self-righteous patrons are as fresh today as they were more than fifty years ago.   Reviewed by John Lekich
Softcover 185 pages $19.95	Home, Tales of a Heritage Farm By Anny Scoones In Home, Tales of a Heritage Farm, author Anny Scoones, guides readers on a warm and gentle ramble through the Southern Vancouver countryside where Home is historic Glamorgan Farm. Along the way we meet her ever-growing menagerie of farm animals, some rare heritage beasts, some nomads, others  castoffs, all imbued with individual personalities that we get to know through Scoones well-told tales of country life.  The book is a collection of short stories about the life on one of Vancouver Island’s oldest historic farms – Glamorgan dates back to 1852 – that has shrunk from hundreds of acres to a manageable eight. It’s here that Scoones seems more of a steward of the land that is home to a colourful assemblage of characters who dwell in outbuildings and trailers, locals who tend community garden plots, and the wonderfully quirky farm animals whose adventures we get know well. There are the rare Naked Neck chickens and Canada’s only Gloucester Old Spots pigs, elderly dogs and Merlin the Billy dog, a stout, smelly old Billy goat who thinks he’s a dog. The book is peppered with poems and tributes from writer friends like PK Page, Susan Musgrave and Lorna Crozier whose writings mark various Glamorgan milestones like the swearing in ceremony for the imported pigs and the tribute to a dying horse.  Scoones writes in an engaging manner that’s perceptive and humorous, that draws one into the quiet rhythm of life at Glamorgan Farm accented by finely watercolors and sketches by her parents Mary Lamb Bobak and Bruno Bobak, accomplished Canadian artists. Reviewed by Judith Lane, wine and food writer
Hardcover 243 pages $26.95	Being Dead is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral                                                By Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hays Being Dead is No Excuse is the perfect gift to give anyone, anytime and I’m going to start with my relatives even though there’s no-one among my family or friends who is about to pop off. We all could benefit from a little black humour when it’s our turn and go out with a knee-slapping guffaw. For now, we can read, laugh, and plan our wakes.  At the very least after reading Being Dead is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral you’ll want to be invited to a Mississippi Delta funeral and partake in the fine funeral food.  According to authors Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hays, it seems down south in the Mississippi Delta that “there are rules for kicking the bucket tastefully, and having a flawless funeral is one of them.” In this book, “flawless” is a matter of interpretation, but rest assured, each chapter has plenty of tempting recipes. As for flawless Southern etiquette: “The Episcopalian ideal of a gentleman is a man who, if a lady falls down drunk, will pick her up and freshen her drink.” Lists are big too: The Top Ten Funeral Foods, The Delta Funeral Hit Parade (Keep a-Goin’ isn’t on it), Southern Funeral Flowers Don’ts and Do’s, and The Eternal Pantry list that will ensure any cook is ever ready to whip up a funeral feast at the drop of any nearest and dearest.  What to serve at my funeral? Bring on the Mason-Dixon curried chicken salad, vodka cake, Aunt Hebe’s coconut cake, pickled shrimp, and just maybe the Bing cherry salad with Coca-Cola. Reviewed by Judith Lane, wine and food writer
Hardcover 324 pages $35.00	Robbing the Bees By Holly Bishop As a kid, bees fascinated me. They still do. Even more so after reading Holly Bishop’s Robbing the Bees where she takes us into the world of the beekeeper and into the hive itself.  Bishop weaves a tale with science fiction overtones in spots that depicts robotic drones and worker bees working their wings off, serving their queen, then dying young and leaving a delicious legacy. This compelling read is also part biography, part history, and a whole lot of hero worship where the heroes are of course the bees.  A beekeeper herself for the past six years, Bishop ‘apprenticed’ with professional Florida beekeeper George Smiley. One of the harvests, that of the rare tupelo honey, is fraught with drama and haste as the beekeeper races his hives to the blossoming tupelo trees, meticulously cleaning the frames between each honey harvests (called robbing the bees) so that each is pure. Honeys are distinct in colour and taste depending on what blossoms the honey has been gathered from akin to wines that are made from different grapes in different regions. Distinctions are deliciously obvious.  Bishop writes in a compelling, evocative style as sharing her humour-laced attempts at beekeeping interwoven with snippets of lore and illustrations, old and new. If you can’t wait for the sweet reward at the book’s end, then skip ahead to last chapter full of old (think Cato, 234-149 BC) and new honey recipes, a tasty finale to a fascinating read. Reviewed by Judith Lane, wine and food writer