Al Dente

"100 Words for Foodies"

Those with a curiosity for all-things culinary should set a place at the table for 100 Words for Foodies, the latest installment in the popular paperback series, 100 Words..., from the editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries. True food fans might take pause at the title. Over the past couple of years the phrase "foodie" has made many, including food lovers, cringe. Personally, I prefer food geek, but I'm holding out for gastronaut to catch on. While not as cheeky as David Kamp's The Food Snob's Dictionary or as practical a reference tool as The New Food Lover's Companion, 100 Words for Foodies would make a terrific stocking stuffer for the Top Chef fan on your holiday shopping list, or even a great host or hostess gift to bring to a dinner party along with a bottle of wine. Maybe people still require definitions for cilantro or ceviche, but there were a few surprises inside when I flipped around. Did you know that a "waterzooi" is a "thick stew of Belgian origin"? I didn't. If you don't know your mezze from your mezzaluna, then this book will be good to have on hand when you're watching cooking shows or flipping through cookbooks. And there's even a number of actual recipes sprinkled throughout the definitions.

Recommended for fans of The Food Snob's Dictionary and The New Food Lover's Companion.

--BTP

The Frogs Wore Red Suspenders

I still remember listening to Daniel Pinkwater introduce The Frogs Wore Red Suspenders to Scott Simon on NPR's Weekend Edition some seven years ago. My whole family was hooked.

Jack Prelutsky's poems are delightful, and Petra Mathers illustrations are charming. So many of Prelutsky's poems feature food, it's hard for a foodie to choose a favorite, but here's one of them. 

Peanut Peg and Peanut Pete

Peanut Peg and Peanut Pete,
on a bright Atlanta street,
call in voices loud and clear,
"Peanuts! Get your peanuts here!"

"Peanut cookies, peanut cakes,
peanut butter, peanut shakes,
peanut ices, peanut pies,
peanut sauce, and peanut fries!"

All day long they gaily sell
peanuts still inside the shell,
peanuts salty, peanuts sweet-
Peanut Peg and Peanut Pete.

The Frogs Wore Red Suspenders, Jack Prelutsky, Tien Wah Press, 2002

--Tracy Schneider

The Bake Shop Ghost: A Sweet Book for Kids

My friend Carolyn gave The Bake Shop Ghost to my daughter, but I know Carolyn had me in mind. I love reading about food. And who could resist this description of the sweets made by the best baker in town, Miss Cora Lee Merriweather?

Few looked up from the glass-fronted cases filled with fluffy meringue pies, glistening fruit tarts, flaky strudels, and, most of all, cakes. Layer cakes, sheet cakes, cakes with glazes, cakes with fillings, cakes with frosting finer than Irish lace, chocolate cakes, white cakes, tiny petits fours and towering wedding cakes.

When Cora Lee Merriweather dies, she refuses to leave the bake shop, and her ghost scares off all the new buyers, until Annie Washington, a pastry chef fresh off a cruise ship, arrives. But how Annie and Cora Lee make peace is a delicious tale. And at the very end of the book, author Jacqueline K. Ogburn shares her family's favorite recipe for chocolate layer cake.

The Bake Shop Ghost, Jacqueline K. Ogburn, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005

--Tracy Schneider

Calling Gin Lovers: Get Gaz Regan’s Gin Compendium Today

Really, this post should be titled “Calling All Cocktail Lovers,” because even those who think they don’t love gin (maybe they just like it, or are okay with it--but really, everyone should love gin, because it’s so cuddly and loveable) will want to pick up Gaz Regan’s new book, the bartender’s GIN compendium. It not only goes through the interesting and intriguing history of gin, but also provides detailed tasting notes on most gins on the market today, as well as the newer Old Tom gins now available (finally, a proper Tom Collins can be made again), making it easy to find a gin that suits your tastes. As if that wasn’t enough, there are a host of handy and sip-able recipes (over 250!) like the Leo Di Janeiro, which mixes Tanqueray gin, pineapple juice, and Angostura bitters, topped with a lemon twist. If someone could bring me one of these right now, I’d be awfully happy.

A book loaded up with gin history, recipes, and helpful notes about current types and brands of gin would be pretty darn great all on its own. But what really makes this book a must for anyone who likes a drink here and there with friends at the bar is the wonderfully enjoyable writing by author Gaz Regan (who’s also known here and there as Gary Regan). Gaz has written a bunch of worthy booze books, and is not only one of the world’s top experts on the subject, but also a charming, witty, raconteur, the type of drinking companion you want to joke with, learn from, and talk to all the way until closing time. Gaz’ great personality, which comes through on every page, is why the GIN compendium will be a bar book you actually enjoy reading (maybe not quite as much as you’ll enjoy testing the recipes, but it’ll be pretty close). So pick it up, pick up some gin, and start shaking and turning those pages.

--A.J. Rathbun

Hungry For More Good Advice from Hungry Monkey

I've got no problem admitting this: The hottest tip I've picked up lately was from a kindergartener. Not just any little squirt, though.

Iris Amster-Burton, one of the most charming food personalities I've come across in a long time, turned me on to Nueske's Apple Smoked Bacon. I had never heard of Nueske's before reading about it in the wildly entertaining memoir/cookbook, Hungry Monkey written by Iris's Dada, Matthew Amster-Burton.

Even as a pre-schooler, this kid had a darned discerning palate. In addition to loving Nueske's above all other bacon, Iris is hooked on Westphalian ham, sushi, pot stickers, mackerel, bibimbap and stuffed trout. These dishes and many more are the delicious stage on which father and daughter romp in Hungry Monkey. (Well, the book is subtitled, A Food-Loving Father's Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater.)

While my own hungry monkey recently left the nest -- and is now suffering through the college freshman ritual of hating cafeteria chow -- I still got a huge kick out of reading this book. At first, I was a little jealous. Because Iris loves to get her little fingers in the mix in the kitchen, cooking with Dad. Something I could never get my food-ambivalent daughter to do, especially during her super picky early years.

Then, I continued reading and learned Iris was picky, too. Not really into veggies, unless it's something like spinach stuffed into ravioli. She loves fries, but not crazy about ketchup. She'll eat just about any fin fish, but turns her nose up at shellfish. And she hates soup.

Of course, all that might have changed since the book was written when she was four and, if there's one reassuring message that comes across, it's that kids go through phases. "The best thing parents can do is relax," he said.

Good advice (like the heads up on that tasty bacon), but still, I can't help think of some of my grown-up friends who never got over being picky. (Come on, admit it. What food do you avoid?) Even the author, who was finnicky when growing up in Portland, refuses to eat tuna or egg salad. Wonder if he's considered trying the latter topped with some of that smoky bacon.

  -- Leslie Kelly

Fall Food Lit Preview: "Save the Deli" by David Sax

In Save the Deli: In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye, and the Heart of the Jewish Delicatessen, journalist David Sax, dubbed "the M.F.K. Fisher of pickled meats," sets out on an entertaining yet often elegiac journey to chronicle an endangered cuisine. Sax kicks things off with an endearing story about his grandfather, who celebrated his discharge from the hospital (where he was being treated for angina) with a mile-high smoked meat sandwich which turned out to be his last meal. Sax then spends time covering the history of delis in New York, even taking a shift behind the counter at Katz's, and chronicles the 2nd Ave Deli's sudden, and much-mourned closure. Then he takes a three-month cross-country tour following the deli trail with stops in New Orleans, Detroit (and nearby Zingerman's in Ann Arbor), Florida, San Francisco, Kansas City, and more. (Mel Brooks makes a cameo in the section on Los Angeles along with Mr. T.: "Anyone who says deli is bad for you: I pity the fool!") He even stamps his passport for an international take in Montreal, Toronto, London, Paris, and Krakow.

The current state of the Jewish deli is telling when Sax offers that the working title for his book was The Death of the Deli. But, just as the famed 2nd Ave Deli reopened after closing the doors on their landmark Lower East Side eatery, the love for deli rose up like a pastrami phoenix. The line out of the door of eager eaters with a passion for cured meat, chopped liver, and knishes should serve as inspiration to keep this cuisine alive and well. The detailed listing of delis in the back of the book should be laminated and kept on hand when traveling.

Recommended for fans of Sweet and Low: A Family Story and 500 Things to Eat Before It's Too Late.

--BTP