Jason Epstein (1928–2022)

I got this book from the library--I tend to scroll through the listings of e-books available at the library and just randomly choose books that I think might be interesting--what the heck, they are free and I can always delete them with a click of the button--I don't even need to return to the library!

Anyway, I selected this book, started to read, and then realized that I had read the book once before. As I read through it for the second time, I enjoyed all the same things I enjoyed the first time through--I never realized that Iceland is actually so close to New York, and he has firmly cemented for me that I will never be able to cook lobsters.

The rest of the book is a quick and interesting read--nothing majorly fantastic, but smack dab in the center of most gastro-memoirs out there. If you like those kind of books, this one is worth a try, but, as you can see from the reviews, you may or may not enjoy it.… (more)

Includes the article "Revel with a Cause" (Jason Epstein Returns to the Memoirs of the Food Writer M.F.K. Fisher and Finds Sustenance in Her Words) Epstein remembers and is comforted by M.F.K. Fisher's writing after the 9/11 attacks. "It was inevitable that I should have turned to Fisher's tales of cooking and loving two weeks after the World Trade Center attack when I settled into my house in Sag Harbor, N.Y., for the weekend, much oppressed by the dust and misery of my weekday life in Lower Manhattan." Illustrated with period B&W photo of Fisher.pp. 24,26.… (more)