relish

relish
lucy knisley
graphic novel/memoir
first second
published 2013

Lucy Knisley loves food.  The daughter of a chef and a gourmet, this talented young cartoonist comes by her obsession honestly.  In her forthright, thoughtful, and funny memoir, Lucy traces key episodes in her life thus far, framed by what she was eating at the time and lessons learned about food, cooking, and life.  Each chapter is bookended with an illustrated recipe - many of them treasured family dishes, and a few of them Lucy's original inventions.

Oh, oh, oh I loved this book.  Reading all of Knisley's memories of growing up and how they were tied to her memories of food.  From growing up in a small apartment in New York City with chefs and foodies, through her parents divorce, puberty, college and coming home she tells it all while weaving in a memory of pasta she had with her dad, or eating McDonald's much to her parents' horror.

The memories are sweet and honest, sometimes funny and sometimes sad, but always, always there was food.  Her recipes are tempting not only from the description, but the illustrations as well.  I especially loved her recounting of her meal at Alinea, especially just coming off of Bourdain's less than favorable opinion of the restaurant.  I finished the book wanted to eat cheese, pickles, farm fresh veggies and tacos and, well, everything!

medium raw

medium raw
anthony bourdain
memoir/audiobook
ecco
published 2010

Medium Raw marks the return of the inimitable Anthony Bourdain, author of the blockbuster bestseller Kitchen Confidential and three-time Emmy Award-nominated host of No Reservations on TV's Travel Channel.  Bourdain calls his book, "A Blood Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook," and he is at his entertaining best as he takes aim at some of the biggest names in the foodie world, including David Chang, Alice Waters, the Top Chef winners and losers, and many more.  If Hunter S. Thompson had written a book about the restaurant business, it could have been Medium Raw.

I must begin my review by stating that I love Anthony Bourdain.  There is very little that he has done or said in his career that I didn't find true or amusing, or both.  And I think that Medium Raw is excellent.  He is honest, both about the people he thinks are wrong and about himself.  No one is safe from his critiques, but he isn't just spewing vitriol or haphazardly calling people douchebags.  There is a method to his madness.  He is equally negative and positive in his critiques and while he may think that Alice Waters should probably retire her gardens for schools idea he thinks her heart is in the right place.  When he names someone a villain he has a reason and a good one at that.

He does a quick 'where are they now' for the co-stars of Kitchen Confidential and it makes me want to go back and read it all over again.  He admits that there is no way he can hack it on the line anymore.  He talks a lot about starting his career moving away from the kitchen and in front of the camera.  He discusses why Food Network is evil and David Chang is brilliant and a maniac.  He validates that Top Chef really is the only cooking competition show on TV worth watching.  ;)  I loved every word.

food: a love story

food: a love story
jim gaffigan
nonfiction/comedy
crown archetype
published 2014

Bacon. McDonalds. Cinnabon. Hot Pockets. Kale. Stand-up comedian and author Jim Gaffigan has made his career rhapsodizing over the most treasured dishes of the American diet and decrying the worst offenders.  Fans flocked to his New York Times bestselling book Dad is Fat to hear him riff on fatherhood but now, in his second book, he will give them what they really crave - hundreds of pages of this thoughts on all things culinary(ish).  Insights such as: why he believes coconut water was invented to get people to stop drinking coconut water, why pretzel bread is #3 on his most important inventions of humankind (behind the wheel and the computer), and the answer to the age-old question "which animal is more delicious: the pig, the cow, or the bacon cheeseburger.

Though very funny, this is mostly just a rehash of his stand up performances so if you've seen them and are very familiar with them this might be a bit boring for you.  There are some laugh out loud moments nonetheless and stuff I hadn't heard before so I was still, thoroughly entertained.  Beware, this book will make you hungry for everything you should not be eating.

i left my ♥ in san francisco

There are times when I just need a break.  I mean, I love my girls and all, but sometimes I want to sell them to my parents or my sister because otherwise, I might just die.

Fourth of July week Ray had off work and so Thursday my parents took the girls overnight and Ray and I spent the entire day in San Francisco.  San Francisco is probably my most favorite thing about living in the Bay Area.  I love the diversity of everything!  The people, the food, the styles...the mix of modern and historical, the smell of the bay, the view of Alcatraz....it's all my favorite.  I feel recharged and excited about everything after being in the city for a day.

We started out our morning heading over to the Ferry Building Market.  Tuesdays and Thursdays are Farmer's Market days and you can get ramen from Hapa Ramen which was my mail reason for going.  The pork and the noodles were delicious, but I could have done without the kale in my broth.

After filling my belly with ramen we wandered around the Ferry Building and walked by Boccalone, but alas, no Chris Cosentino.  Nonetheless, there were lots of things (and people) to look at.  I picked up some postcards to send to my LEPsters and then we wandered out to the Embarcadero shopping area for a bit before making our way to the San Francisco Shopping Centre.

Now, it's basically just a Westfield Shopping mall, but every time I go I have to take a picture of the ceiling.  It's so freaking gorgeous and makes me so happy.

Got some delicious tea from Lupcia after smelling just about every tea they had.  We also stopped in at a very crowded David's Teas, but because it was so crowded (and also because I literally have over 20 different kinds of teas at my house) I decided not to buy anything.

Inside Maido I found they sold Preppy fountain pens and Pilot Petit fountain pens so I bought three of each and some refills.  It was a very exciting moment for me!  The Maido on Santana Row doesn't have any!  We took the longest walk in the entire universe to get to Flax Art store down Market.  It was huge and full of just about every kind of art supply you might need to do whatever project you might do.  I ended up buying just a Stella pen (which I love and will now be buying more of them), but it was worth the 100 mile walk.

I also discovered this mall is more awesome than malls around here for the simple fact that their Hallmark store had the Itty Bitty Batman I haven't been able to find anywhere!!  Isn't he so cute?!  And I couldn't resist the So♥So Happy stickers too.

Then we were off the Japantown, which we didn't realize was going to close up in an hour.  *sad face*

 We did get into Daiso and found the motherload of all the shit I did not need, but needed.  Like these timers which we're using for green, herbal and black tea.  The clerk at Lupcia actually told us about them.  So far they work brilliantly.  Much better than the $15 broken one we got from Teavana.

Mini envelopes I'm going to use for mail tag!  I really did rein myself in here as I wanted to buy a bunch more, but I found other things I wanted to buy.....

Like all this stationery!!!  I bought two of everything!!  $1.50 for 12 sheets, 6 envelopes and 6 stickers.  I'm in love with it all.

 After eating dinner at another ramen joint (which I didn't take a picture of because I was already hungry and eating before I remembered to take a picture, plus the egg was hardboiled.  Seriously.  Booooo) we wandered around the closed shops, sat in Hotel Kabuki for an hour while we waited for our movie at the Kubuki Theater to start.

The Kabuki Theater is part of the Sundance Theaters and so they show a lot of indie or limited release movies.  Our main reason for going was because they have some showings that are 21 and over.  You can order drinks and food from the bar and take them into the theater with you.  So we got our tickets for Chef and got a beer and a vodka cranberry (THAT COST $25!!!!!!) and watched a movie.

The movie was super cute and I loved it.  It was just what I needed and I love watching movies with cooking in it.  Jon Favreau was great, John Leguizamo was adorable (something I never thought I would say), but the star of the movie was 11 year-old Emjay Anthony.  He stole the show for me.

So we drove back home in the middle of the night, sore from walking (buy I did hit 20,000 steps before midnight!), but I felt much better than I had in weeks.  Now my house is clean and I'm back to reading books and writing letters.  Of course, my reply pile is in the double digits, but that's okay!  I'll catch up and send out some surprise happy mail and finish my books and all is good.