. I've since seen a reference to it in Simple Abundance, but I think I may have found it separately from that.Regardless, it is the best kind of food writing and memoirs I can imagine. It is one of the books that made me want to write about food. It has recipes, but it's not a recipe book. I admit, though, that I keep it on my small bookshelf of cookbooks in the kitchen because the recipes are good enough that I do cook out of it periodically.
Likewise, the essays are good enough that I want to keep them in the living room with most of the rest of my books. (Work-related ones are upstairs in the office.) She is a "real food" cook. Her stories, about wonderful meals or disasters, ring true and will have you wincing or smiling in shared similar memories. It's not MFK Fisher. They're less pretentious and more real somehow. Perhaps that's a generational difference. I don't know. I love reading MFK Fisher. But this is totally different.
On a funny note, I just mentioned this book to a virtual friend. You have those right? Someone you've "met" online but never IRL (in real life) yet you connect. We got to know each other a bit through our blogs last year and then I cut back on online reading and lost touch. She emailed me the other day to touch base and I mentioned Laurie Colwin in my reply, as something in it was germane. It definitely touched a nerve and she wrote back instantly with fond memories of reading Colwin's food essays.
I'm not sure where to post this. Blogger doesn't let me do categories so I've set up different blogs for cooking, gardening, and reading. If I'm reading a book about gardening or cooking (or--my favorite--both!) what am I to do?
I am at the point where the books are piling up on the coffee table again, despite my latest best effort to clean them off. I'm typically reading 3 or 4 at a time, but it's gone beyond that. Too many books...too little time!
Po Bronson's What Should I Do with My Life?
The Vegetable Gardener's Bible by Edward Smith
Don't Worry, Make Money by Richard Carlson
Word Work by Bruce Holland Rogers
Pacific in my Soul by Anne Chadwick
- Gorgeous, gorgeous! I picked this up at Sea Ranch on vacation.The Sound of Paper by Julie Cameron
1 comments:
I feel the same way about Laurie Colwin's work. I was moved by a reading I heard of "Alone in my kitchen with an Eggplant" (I think is the correct title) on PRI's Selected Shorts. I will look for her books on my next visit to the states.
Suzie - Teresopolis, Brazil
Post a Comment