Years ago I bought “The Perfect Scoop: ice creams, sorbets, granitas, and sweet accompaniments”(2007) by David Leibovitz. I like good, rich homemade ice cream. I’m not sure what drew me to Leibovitz, maybe that he had worked for Alice Waters at Chez Panisse. Maybe I read a good review. I’ve used his recipes to make a number of ice creams. Chocolate: Philadelphia Style is a favorite.
Leibovitz was living in Paris. He loved ice cream and chocolate. He was an introduction into contemporary French cooking, especially sweets. We then bought “My Paris Kitchen: recipes and stories” (2014). Amazon reviewed:
“In 2004, David Lebovitz packed up his most treasured cookbooks, a well-worn cast-iron skillet, and his laptop and moved to Paris. In that time, the culinary culture of France has shifted as a new generation of chefs and home cooks—most notably in Paris—incorporates ingredients and techniques from around the world into traditional French dishes.
In My Paris Kitchen, David remasters the classics, introduces lesser-known fare, and presents 100 sweet and savory recipes that reflect the way modern Parisians eat today. You’ll find Soupe à l’oignon, Cassoulet, Coq au vin, and Croque-monsieur, as well as Smoky barbecue-style pork, Lamb shank tagine, Dukkah-roasted cauliflower, Salt cod fritters with tartar sauce, and Wheat berry salad with radicchio, root vegetables, and pomegranate. And of course, there’s dessert: Warm chocolate cake with salted butter caramel sauce, Duck fat cookies, Bay leaf poundcake with orange glaze, French cheesecake…and the list goes on. David also shares stories told with his trademark wit and humor, and lush photography taken on location around Paris and in David’s kitchen reveals the quirks, trials, beauty, and joys of life in the culinary capital of the world.”
Although I like cookbooks I frequently skip them and find recipes online. Diane tends to read cookbooks. I have a goal to read cookbooks more often. Recently I’ve been reading Leibovitz’s newsletter. I’ve never been to Paris, but the city intrigues me. I like reading about it and dream about visiting or living there. In the footsteps of Lebovitz, Hemingway and many other expatriates.
I have also read “The Sweet Life in Paris: delicious adventures in the world’s most glorious and perplexing city” (2011). Again from Amazon:
“Like so many others, David Lebovitz dreamed about living in Paris ever since he first visited the city and after a nearly two-decade career as a pastry chef and cookbook author, he finally moved to Paris to start a new life. Having crammed all his worldly belongings into three suitcases, he arrived, hopes high, at his new apartment in the lively Bastille neighborhood. But he soon discovered it’s a different world en France.
From learning the ironclad rules of social conduct to the mysteries of men’s footwear, from shopkeepers who work so hard not to sell you anything to the etiquette of working the right way around the cheese plate, here is David’s story of how he came to fall in love with—and even understand—this glorious, yet sometimes maddening, city.
When did he realize he had morphed into un vrai parisien? It might have been when he found himself considering a purchase of men’s dress socks with cartoon characters on them. Or perhaps the time he went to a bank with 135 euros in hand to make a 134-euro payment, was told the bank had no change that day, and thought it was completely normal. Or when he found himself dressing up to take out the garbage because he had come to accept that in Paris appearances and image mean everything.
Once you stop laughing, the more than fifty original recipes, for dishes both savory and sweet, such as Pork Loin with Brown Sugar–Bourbon Glaze, Braised Turkey in Beaujolais Nouveau with Prunes, Bacon and Bleu Cheese Cake, Chocolate-Coconut Marshmallows, Chocolate Spice Bread, Lemon-Glazed Madeleines, and Mocha–Crème Fraîche Cake, will have you running to the kitchen for your own taste of Parisian living.”
The read added to my Paris dreams. And there were many recipes I could try.
When I recently saw another Leibovitz book, “ L’appart: the delights and disasters of making my Paris home,” (2017) I ordered it. For years David had been renting a Paris apartment but decided he should buy. It took months to find a place he liked and months to finally close the deal. His new place needed a lot of work. “L’appart” is the story of his months navigating French supply, learning plumbing, electrical, kitchen appliance vocabulary, tracking down the type of refrigerator or sink he wanted for his kitchen and dealing with his contractor.
The contractor who came recommended turned out to be a nightmare. Almost everything was done poorly, incorrectly, sometimes dangerously. David was always blamed and then charged extra. His French companion, Romain could be tough with Claude, the contractor but David was usually putty. It’s hard to believe how many things could go wrong. I couldn’t help thinking about my personal frustrations with contractors and house repairs. Not returning calls. Dragging out jobs. Things not working. Using materials I didn’t want.
Months overdue, totally frustrated, David brings in another architect/contractor. He learns how many things need to be redone. Although he considers legal action against the original contractor, he is advised against wasting his time. He pays for mandatory repairs, lives with some others. But he is in his Paris apartment in his Paris kitchen.
In the coming months I hope to search David’s books for recipes. Maybe a taste of Pari here in Yardley, something to feed my Paris dreams.
Several years ago I read “A Passion for Books: a booklover’s treasury of stories, essays, humor, lore and lists on collecting, reading, borrowing, lending, caring for, and appreciating books,” edited by Harold Rabinowitz and Rob Kaplan. This is one of many book about books. I have quite a few.
I’ve previously written about books, check out my blog, “My Life in Books.” It recalls the old Bristol Library where I discovered the junior classics, Leary’s bookstore in Philadelphia, reading in high school, the Harcourt Bindery in Boston, being an English major, a librarian at Holy Ghost Prep, and collecting Sherlock Holmes, photography and film, local Bucks County, Philadelphia and Pennsylvania History, travel, and food.
I was never the type of bibliophile written about in “A Passion for Books.” The only collectors’ names I recognized was Philip and A.S.W. Rosenbach. They bought and sold rare books. I’ve visited their Delancy Street museum, The Rosenbach, in Philadelphia several times. The most memorable trips were several June 16 Bloomsday Festivals that I attended. All day people sat outside and guest speakers read from “Ulysses.”
The museum has a manuscript copy from Joyce’s hand. One year I spent most of a day listening. I also remember an exhibit of Maurice Sendak, the children’s author/ illustrator who gave the museum his works. I need to get back.
My earliest awareness of “special books” was in the old Bristol Library and Leary’s bookstore in Philadelphia. I recognized and liked books with quality illustrations. It might be an edition of the Wizard of Oz or Robinson Crusoe. Scribners published many, we have a few, some illustrated by Andrew Wyeth. My father would take me to the City, Jewelers Row, Horn & Hardarts lunch, Independence Hall and Leary’s, my favorite stop.
My bibliomania expanded a bit when I worked at the Harcourt Bindery in Boston in the 1960s. What a dream job for a college student. I learned a bit of leather binding, and a little about first and special editions. Several years ago for Christmas I gave my grandchildren books bound in leather at the Harcourt — David Coperfield for Eli; Anderson’s Fairy Tales for Viv. I have a few others with my small collection of rare books. For several years I bought Heritage Press books, a way to read the classics. I learned of Heritage Press when I bought them, rebound them in leather, then sold them through the Bindery. (All were sold when I left for the Peace Corps.) Several years ago I sent my super 8 Harcourt Bindery film to be digitized; somehow the company lost the film. A former teacher who purchased the Bindery in the 1970s from my boss, Fred Young, wanted a copy. He had made several films about the Bindery with grant money and was planning to write a book.
Film history books
My book collecting has always been topical rather that the rare and first editions often collected by bibliophiles. At Boston College in the mid 60s, I became interested in filmmaking and took several courses. It was the period of American infatuation with foreign films, art films, director as auteur. Scorsese, Coppola, Lucas, and many others went to the new film schools like NYUs. Many books were being published about film history, reviews, directors and film making. I began to buy everyone. I added to my film book collection in the 2000s when I taught a film history course at Holy Ghost Prep.
My next book buying passion was Sherlock Holmes. There are a handful of books and story collections by Conan Doyle; but there are hundreds, probably thousands books about Doyle, Holmes and Watson, Moriarity, Scotland Yard and the pastiches modeling Doyle’s style. I bought all that I could. I even subscribed to one of many journals devoted to the Holmes’s Canon, “The Baker Street Irregulars.” Books, including different editions of Doyle’s publications, and journals fill a shelf in my bedroom closet.
Around the same time I began to collect photography books. Some were collections of historic photographs or the early photographers. Dover published a lot of older photographers. I used many of these in teaching American history. Others were the works of classic or contemporary photographers. When I took a course with Ernst Haas or Bill Curtsinger in the 1970s, I bought their books. When I retired I probably had close to 100 books. Almost all were sold. First I offered them on Amazon, then I boxed and sold them to a Princeton bookstore. I may regret that sale.
In the 1980s I began to teach courses in local history — Bucks County, Philadelphia with a bit of Pennsylvania. I began to buy any books related to Bucks County. There were standard classics from the 18th century; reprints; and new histories. Some were pamphlets and town anniversary books. My “Bucks County” collection contains most books published about the County. Obviously there is much more published about Philadelphia and Pennylvania. But I bought a lot. For years I attended Pennsylvania Historical Association conventions and returned home with several hundred dollars of books from local University presses — Temple, University of Penn and Penn State — and the Pennsylvania Historic Commission. I also bought a few out- of-print classics like Watson’s history of Philadelphia. Interestingly, when I wrote my dissertation, I used quite a few of the books on PA political history from my collection. I made many trips to the Spruance Library (The Bucks County Historical Society) in the Mercer Museum, Doylestown, to read local history. Newspapers I discovered there became the basis of my two year weekly local history column in the Yardley News, which led to my book on Yardley.
When we lived in New Hope in the mid 1970s we frequented Farley’s bookstore. They had a good collection of local history books. It’s still there but a bit shop worn. The old Yardley library was a favorite book stop after we moved to Canal Street in the early 70s. I enjoyed many evening walks, especially in the snow, to find a good read. The elder women librarians were classic. It was so small books the two deep. Eventually a new county library was built in Lower Makefield. The carpenter gothic old library was taken over by the Yardley Historical Association. Then in 2000 I wrote an Arcadia photographic book on “Yardley,” my local history.
Interest in local history led/leads me to purchase/collect, books related to places we visit. I have many books about New Jersey, New York State and New York City. I would or will buy anything I can about Nantucket and Cape Cod. The Chesapeake, New England, particularly Maine and Boston get my attention. Seattle and the Northwest fill part of a shelf; Florida another.
In the 1990s I began teaching a course in how to teach social studies in elementary and high schools. I believed that teachers had to go beyond what they would teach their students. I began to develop a bibliography of “good social studies reading.” It was based on my own reading and every year I added a dozen books. There were history books and biography, travel books, memoirs, sociology and economics, books about food and culture. Most of my copies were paperbacks, frequently bought from a local Barnes and Noble recommended reading table. They had a great buyer. When I retired from HGP and stopped teaching the college course I asked, “Why am I keeping these books.” Well, “I might want to reread them.” So began my reread program. Actually I sold about half (more likely gave them away) and have reread quite a few.
Another 1990s collection was children’s books. The Newbury winners; large format, beautifully illustrated books for the pre-school through 3rd grade. This collection was also related to the social studies teaching class. One session was devoted to children’s books. For years I would borrow several dozen books from Phyllis Gallagher who taught a course in children’s lit. Then I started to buy; maybe a hundred books. When Eli and Viv came on the scene I had lots of kids books. A few years ago, I had them go through the collection, save sell, save, save, sell. Some are currently listed on Amazon.
More recently food and cooking books have become a collection. We probably have close to 100 traditional cookbooks. For years Diane has been a cookbook reader. It’s only recently that I’ve signed on. But in addition to cookbooks there are chef memoirs, books about specific crops, fish, fruits and vegetables, and processed food products. Probably the first single food book I ever read/reread was “The Chicken Book.” I knew I liked the book, but why? On the reread I discovered, it was two college professors who decided to teach a course about chickens — the history, economics, religious connections and cooking recipes. Since then I’ve read books on cod, bluefish, tomatoes, caviar, salt, catfish, beans. If we eat it, someone will write a book about it.
I’ve been buying fewer books. And I continue re-reading. I should sell or give away many books from my library. But when you have a passion, it’s hard, not impossible, just hard. Do you read many books? Do you collect books? What topics? Any recommendation for me?
I don’t remember where I read about “Black, White, and the Grey: the story of an unexpected friendship and a beloved restaurant” by Mashama Bailey and John O. Morisano (2021) but it was a fascinating read. (Actually I’ve read quite a few memoirs of chefs in the past few years.) Johno was tired of his NYC media job. He wanted a change. A new life started when in 2011 he bought a home then the 1938 art deco Greyhound bus station in Savannah. He decided he’d open a restaurant in a remolded station. His restaurant business advisors pushed him to find a chef to help supervise the renovations. He interviewed, usually experienced white guys (Johno was Italian American) but none clicked. He decided he needed a woman, probably an African American woman. Where could he find her?
Johno was reading Gabrielle Hamilton’s memoir, ”Blood, Bones & Butter.” He decided to contact her for advice and eventually they met at her village restaurant Prune. She recommended one of her chefs, Mashama Bailey. Johno ate at Prune when Mashama was cooking, upsetting Gabrielle who didn’t appreciate her kitchen being used for an audition. Johno offered Mashama to become a partner in “The Grey.” She visited Savannah (where she had lived) and accepted.
The renovation of the Greyhound station dragged on. Johno and Mashama began to work out their relationship as an African-American woman and an Italian-American in a Southern city. They travel to Italy, Johno hoping Mashama can merge some Italian cuisine with traditional African-American food. Mashama experiments with recipes, crafting what will be the restaurant’s menu. They hope to preserve the history of the segregated bus station, architectural details, and attract a cross section of people from Savannah. The Grey sits on the edge of the historic district and a run down Black neighborhood. Johno and Mashama struggle at times to understand and appreciate each other.
Johno decides to write a book documenting their journey. Mashama isn’t interested until the publisher convinces her that her voice is important. As published the text alternates between them. So we read about an incident, feeling, issue from different perspectives. There is a fair amount about the history of segregation and Savannah culture.
The Grey opened in 2014. It is still a success, a highly rated Savannah. After finishing ”Black, White, and The Grey,” I’ve fantasized about a trip to Savannah. Maybe! I enjoyed the story of a restaurant, it’s owner and it’s chef but what initially drew me in was the story of a White and Black, man and woman, friendship and business partnership.
A quite different chef memoir is, ”The Apprentice: my life in the kitchen,” by Jacque Pepin (2004). Amazon provides a good summary:
“ In this captivating memoir, the man whom Julia Child has called “the best chef in America” tells the story of his rise from a frightened apprentice in an exacting Old World kitchen to an Emmy Award–winning superstar who taught millions of Americans how to cook and shaped the nation’s tastes in the bargain.
We see young Jacques as a homesick six-year-old boy in war-ravaged France, working on a farm in exchange for food, dodging bombs, and bearing witness as German soldiers capture his father, a fighter in the Resistance. Soon Jacques is caught up in the hurly-burly action of his mother’s café, where he proves a natural. He endures a literal trial by fire and works his way up the ladder in the feudal system of France’s most famous restaurant, finally becoming Charles de Gaulle’s personal chef, watching the world being refashioned from the other side of the kitchen door.
When he comes to America, Jacques immediately falls in with a small group of as-yet-unknown food lovers, including Craig Claiborne, James Beard, and Julia Child, whose adventures redefine American food. Through it all, Jacques proves himself to be a master of the American art of reinvention: earning a graduate degree from Columbia University, turning down a job as John F. Kennedy’s chef to work at Howard Johnson’s, and, after a near-fatal car accident, switching careers once again to become a charismatic leader in the revolution that changed the way Americans approached food. Included as well are forty all-time favorite recipes created during the course of a career spanning nearly half a century, from his mother’s utterly simple cheese soufflé to his wife’s pork ribs and red beans.
The Apprentice is the poignant and sometimes funny tale of a boy’s coming of age. Beyond that, it is the story of America’s culinary awakening and the transformation of food from an afterthought to a national preoccupation.”
I was always intrigued how, why Pepin went to work for Howard Johnsons. I recall going to one regularly not far from my apartment in Boston. He explains it as the freedom to create. Although he cooked in restaurants, he also wrote a lot, lectured, taught classes. We don’r have a Pepin cookbook.
One of my favorite chef memoirs is ”Yes, Chef: a memoir” by Marcus Samuelsson (2013). We have his cookbook, ”Aquavit” (Houghton Mifflin, 2003). Still hoping to get to his current Harlem restaurant, Red Rooster. I wrote about Samuelsson several months ago. Check it out: https://wordpress.com/post/vprofy.wordpress.com/12453.
NEW YORK, NY – OCTOBER 12: Chef Gabrielle Hamilton attends the Food Network & Cooking Channel New York City Wine & Food Festival Presented By Coca-Cola – Dinner with Gabrielle Hamilton, Nancy Silverton and Dominique Crenn part of the Bank of America Dinner Series presented by The Wall Street Journal at Bank of America Building on October 12, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Daniel Zuchnik/Getty Images for NYCWFF)
Another favorite is ”Blood, Bones & Butter: the inadvertent education of a reluctant chef,” by Gabrielle Hamilton (Random House, 2012). We lived around the corner from the Hamilton’s old mill home in New Hope, early 1970s. Gabrielle, her sister Melissa and brothers were teens. Father Jim was a NYC set designer, turned restaurant owner, chef. Mom was French. Until a few years ago when Jim died, Hamilton’s Grill in Lambertville was our favorite restaurant. We haven’t been back, partially due to Covid and their price fixe dinner only menu. Melissa became a cookbook author, with a series, ”Canal House Cooking.” Several years ago, she and her partner, Christopher Hirsheimer opened Canal House Station Cafe & Restaurant in Milforn NJ. We have had several four course take out dinners during Covid. Expensive, a long ride; but excellent.
Gabrielle was a bit of a rebel. She admitted shop lifting in New Hope, left home for NYC at seventeen, was caught stealing tips, was fired but not prosecuted (she was a minor serving drinks). Dad paid her way to college, she graduated and returned to NYC. A friend suggested she open a restaurant in the small space below her apartment in the East Village. In 1999, Prune was born in a small space below her apartment. Gabrielle turned out to be a great chef. In 2011 she won the James Beard Foundation award for best chef in NYC.
Unfortunately Covid led to the closure of Prune. Gabrielle wrote an article for the New Your Times.
From the article: “Prune is a cramped and lively bistro in Manhattan’s East Village, with a devoted following and a tight-knit crew. I opened it in 1999. It has only 14 tables, which are jammed in so close together that not infrequently you put down your glass of wine to take a bite of your food and realize it’s on your neighbor’s table. Many friendships have started this way.
What was I imagining 20 years ago when I was working all day, every day at a catering job while staying up all night every night, writing menus and sketching the plating of dishes, scrubbing the walls and painting the butter-yellow trim inside what would become Prune? I’d seen the padlocked space, formerly a failed French bistro, when it was decrepit: cockroaches crawling over the sticky Pernod bottles behind the bar and rat droppings carpeting the floors. But even in that moment, gasping for air through the T-shirt I had pulled up over my mouth, I could see vividly what it could become, the intimate dinner party I would throw every night in this charming, quirky space. I was already lighting the candles and filling the jelly jars with wine. I would cook there much the way I cooked at home: whole roasted veal breast and torn lettuces in a well-oiled wooden bowl, a ripe cheese after dinner, none of the aggressively “conceptual” or architectural food then trendy among aspirational chefs but also none of the roulades and miniaturized bites I’d been cranking out as a freelancer in catering kitchens.
At that point New York didn’t have an ambitious and exciting restaurant on every block, in every unlikely neighborhood, operating out of impossibly narrow spaces. There was no Eater, no Instagram, no hipster Brooklyn food scene. If you wanted something expert to eat, you dined in Manhattan. For fine dining, with plush armchairs and a captain who ran your table wearing an Armani suit, you went uptown; for the buzzy American brasserie with bentwood cane-backed chairs and waiters in long white aprons, you stayed downtown. There was no serious restaurant that would allow a waiter to wear a flannel shirt or hire a sommelier with face piercings and neck tattoos. The East Village had Polish and Ukrainian diners, falafel stands, pizza parlors, dive bars and vegetarian cafes. There was only one notable noodle spot. Momofuku opened five years after Prune.” There are rumors that Prune may reopen
We have Gabrielle’s cookbook, ”Prune” and we went to the restaurant with John and Barbara Paglione in 2015. A fantastic experience. Hope she reopens.
More recently I read, ”Finding Freedom: a cook’s story remaking a life from scratch” (2021) by Erin French. Erin grew up in rural Maine, in Freedom. It’s a small inland town, north of Rockland. He father ran a small basic diner and at a young age Erin worked for him. She took to cooking and serving and self taught became a chef. It wasn’t easy running a restaurant, never is. Dad took to heavy drinking, hanging out with his Harley friends, as an escape and Erin had to accept more responsibility. She finally escapes to Boston and college but gets pregnant and returns home to Freedom. The father of her child, a boy, wasn’t ready to accept his responsibility. She had the baby and returned to the line in the diner. But she wanted more. She purchased cookbooks and learned from Alice Waters, Ruth Reichl, Martha Stewart, Ina Garten and others. She gets a restaurant job in Rockport. At a bistro where she worked she met and married Tom. He was older. Tom turned out to be a drinker; the marriage was not going well.
Erin’s story continues to unfold like a fairytale. She is able to open a restaurant, ”The Lost Kitchen.” Tom is no help. She pushes herself, raising her son, running her kitchen. Alcohol and drugs get her through many long days. In an strange twist, Tom has her committed to a rehab center and takes custody of her son. When her insurance runs out, she ups and leaves. Tom has closed her restaurant. Erin is determined. She gets her hands on a silver trailer, fixes it up and hits the road, hosting dinner parties on farms. One was Eliot Coleman’s Four Seasons Organic Farm in Harborside, Maine, on a peninsula made famous by 1960s homesteaders, back to the earth gurus, Helen and Scott Nearing. We visited the Nearings and Colemans in the early 1970s and went back to Four Seasons Farm about 14 years ago. I’ve previously written about our trips to the Blue Hill peninsula and Harborside. See: https://vprofy.wordpress.com/2022/02/04/maine-letters/
Erin’s farm dinners were a huge success. She is able to borrow some money, she gets custody of her son, and buys an old mill in Freedom. ”The Lost Kitchen” is reborn. We have the cookbook and I hope to use some of her recipes. The restaurant is so successful that once a year there is a lottery for reservations. From the website:
“We are now accepting reservation requests for our 2022 season!
Due to the high demand in recent years, we will again be accepting your requests by postcard and make reservations using a luck-of-the draw system.
In tandem with our reservation process this year, we are raising funds and awareness for a cause that is very close to us…
If you’d like information on how to submit a postcard request for a chance at getting a table, and learn more about who we are supporting & why we are raising funds this season, please follow the link below…” Did I say fairytale.
These Chef memoirs are a genre I totally enjoy. I’ve read memoirs or books about Julia Child, Michael Pollen, James Beard, Ruth Reichl, and M.K. Fisher. Then there is Stanley Tucci. I’ll save these for other days. Do you have favorite chefs, memoirs, cookbooks? Comments appreciated.
vprofy 