Under the Table

What would it be like to grow up in a restaurant?

And I mean literally grow up in a restaurant, where your father is the chef, your mother is the pastry chef and all the servers give you maraschino cherries and bring you little plates of food as you sit in the dining room doing your homework.

I'm fascinated by restaurants and their culture.  Charlotte Silver's Charlotte au Chocolat:  Memories of a Restaurant Girlhood chronicles the years in which her parents and then her single mother (I'm not giving away any major plot points here, I promise) owned the restaurant Upstairs at the Pudding in Boston's Harvard Square.  The restaurant, in a crumbling, Harvard-owned building, is above the famous Hasty Pudding club, which every year crowns celebrities Man and Woman of the Year and puts on a famous annual show that always features men in drag.

It makes for a fascinating setting, but what is more interesting is how restaurant life is perceived through the eyes of a girl.  For many chapters, it seems that she is the Alice in Wonderland of the restaurant world, crawling under tables and scaring customers, sitting in prim little party dresses for the amusement of the same customers and eating the fabulous desserts that her mother makes.  School nights and normal bedtimes don't really come into consideration.

When Silver described the swagged dining room with its pink accents, I couldn't help but think of a certain class of restaurants from a bygone era.  For many chapters, I thought that the time frame was in the 1950s through the 1970s--up to the point where I realized that Silver was younger than me.  The restaurant closed in 2001 after a lease dispute with Harvard, although a version of it reopened elsewhere--minus the unique atmosphere of the original.

While Silver isn't a great writer--the book is repetitive in spots--I admit that I was fascinated by her childhood.  It lacked structure and was constantly chaotic, but I wanted to be that little girl hiding under tables, stealing bites of her mother's famed charlotte au chocolate dessert, after which was was named, and speaking Spanish with the revolving cast of waiters.  I wanted to be this version of Alice in Wonderland.

It's a short book, but an appropriately sweet one for anyone interested in a unique perspective on restaurant culture.

On My Bookshelf: Let Us Eat Cake

It's been a while since I have done a review of food literature on this blog--well, it's been a while since I've been reading much food lit.  It's not that I haven't been reading, just that I've been wanting to cook food more than wanting to read about it.

When I was in Portland for the marathon last year, I went a little nutty at Powell's, also known as the best indie bookstore in the U.S., in my opinion.  Is there anything similar to Powell's in Seattle?  If so, let me know and I will hit it when I travel there this weekend.  Also, if anyone has Seattle restaurant recommendations, let me have 'em!



Photo from Amazon.com



I read Sharon Boorstin's Let Us Eat Cake:  Adventures in Food & Friendship on a business trip last month.  Essentially, it's a remembrance of friends told through the foods that they ate together at rehearsal dinners, baby showers and catching-up dinners.  All the usual suspects are here: stories of women being taught to cook by their mothers in the 1950s in preparation for marriage, single-girl dinners made in an effort to attract mean, dinners with long-lost friends and, most movingly, the story of a dinner with a friend dying of cancer.

Let's be honest:  the cover of this book is pink and it starts off fairly girly.  There was a point at which I almost stopped reading because the book felt more like the coming of age of a writer I wasn't particularly interested in rather than the promised chronicle of food and friendship.  But miraculously, maybe a third of the way in, it becomes something better and deeper that, while told through a woman's perspective, isn't particularly girly.  It becomes about how food binds us, eases conversations that would otherwise be difficult and brings unlikely people to the same table. 

That isn't a girly experience at all.  What is your best memory of bonding over food?  I have lots of them, but the one that comes to mind right now is the first dinner I had with my husband.  We walked into a restaurant as casual friends (it wasn't even a date), but when I walked out I knew I wanted to spend a lot more time with him.  Discuss your own memories below...I look forward to hearing about them.

On My Bookshelf: The Fabulous and Terrible Life of an Immigrant Restauranteur

On my bookshelf, otherwise known as "odd things Krista reads while on the elliptical at the gym." 

Seriously, I confound my personal trainer, who wonders how I can possibly read about food while exercising without getting hungry or wanting to eat all the bad things described in the book or magazine.

Of course, my trainer has been trying to convince me that I shouldn't eat carbohydrates after 4 p.m. for the past four years.  Yeah, like that's going to happen. 

Although I love food literature, I am not normally a biography reader.  Pino Luongo's biography Dirty Dishes:  a Restauranteur's Story of Passion, Pain and Pasta intrigued me because Luongo was an Italian immigrant who came to the United States with no formal culinary training, barely a lick of English and running from conscription in the Italian military.  Along the way, he marries (and divorces) a longtime girlfriend to get his green card and starts several apparently prominent Manhattan restaurants, only one of which still existed at the time the book was written.  (Incidentally, I just searched for Luongo's website and that of his last restaurant, and couldn't find either.)



Photo from Amazon.com



Although I finished the book and it was a relatively quick read, I cannot recommend it unless 1) you really like immigrant stories or 2) you are interested in this particular man.  First of all, the book is written in a somewhat stilted manner, particularly the first fifty pages.  This may be a result of an uneven collaboration between Luongo and his cowriter, but it makes for a slow start in what is the most interesting part of the story.  Luongo's description of his mother's cooking and its influence and his contentious relationship with his father sets up most of the decisions he makes as an adult, but it is told in an impersonal and circuitous manner.

Although the writing smoothed out a quarter of the way in, I sensed that Luongo wanted to be presented in the most favorable possible light and the co-writer followed suit.  Underneath the stories about how generous Luongo was with his employees and how much he cared about his business reputation was an undercurrent that Luongo was a selfish hothead who made impetuous business decisions. 

There is a great immigrant's story here, but it is buried in what often feels like a vanity project.  The book also missteps in having the co-writer narrate long sections (which are italicized for even greater irritation) about his conversations with Luongo while writing the book.  Andrew Friedman is a decent writer--a better book he edited is here--but since it seems that he is santizing his subject he becomes an unreliable narrator.

Anyone else read this book?  If so, tell me what you thought.

On My Bookshelf: So you want to own a bakery...



Anthony Bourdain calls a lot of food literature "food porn."  It's wish fulfillment, often accompanied by photos of impossibly luscious food.

That may apply to cookbooks, but the food literature I love is about the adventure of food and the food industry.  It's unlikely that I will ever work in a professional kitchen, although I'd bet money that I attend culinary school later in life.  The two books I'm reviewing this time around are about women who weren't sure of their paths in life, although they knew that being around food gave them great satisfaction.

Gesine Bullock-Prado's Confections of a Closet Master Baker starts with her graduating from law school, surveying her options and deciding to run her more famous sister Sandra Bullock's production company.  Hmm.  It's nice to have connections.

After trying for a few years to get good movies made (and failing) and tiring of lunching to see and be seen (but not eating), Bullock-Prado and her husband moved to Burlington, Vermont and opened a small bakery.  The book takes them through the first year in operation and chronicles the trials of owning a small business.  Bullock-Prado peppers her chapters with recipes for cakes and pastries, but the recipes are beside the point.

I'll admit it, I was initially skeptical about this book--famous sister=book deal, right?  In reality, Sandra Bullock is a very minor character in this story, although she sure does sound like the perfect sister. 

This book is a clear-eyed look at the difficulty of opening a small business and trying to stay afloat.  For the first year, the enterprise seems one step away from disaster or going under.  Although the tone of the book is largely humorous, this is a cautionary tale as much as a cute book about Bullock-Prado pursuing her dream.  Although I would particularly recommend this to bakers, the lessons are equally applicable to anyone thinking about opening a restaurant.  By the end of the book, the bakery is succeeding in a small way, but I wonder what will happen to it.

When I logged onto Amazon to post the link to the book, I noticed that Bullock-Prado has written a follow-up.  More on that to come...

Phoebe Damrosch's Service Included:  Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter, sounds salacious, although it's not.  Damrosch graduates from college and starts working in the New York restaurant scene almost by default.  She lucks into a job at Thomas Keller's soon-to-open Per Se, a pretty good gig for someone who admits that they aren't a good server. 

This book is part "what do I want to do when I grow up?" story and one part a chronicle of opening one of the most highly-anticipated restaurants in the last decade.  The second part is far better than the first, unless you want to hear about how Damrosch started dating a sommelier who was involved with someone else who worked in the restaurant.

No, the more interesting story is about how obsessively planned the restaurant was, and how much training and preparation went into its opening.  Damrosch's text is peppered with "tips" for diners, including not asking servers what their "other job" is and letting your waiter know if you plan to get up between courses so the kitchen can plan accordingly. 

Although I didn't love this book, it is a fascinating look into the world of opening a high-dollar restaurant where there is a great deal at stake.  I would recommend it to those interested in a look behind the curtains, as well as devotees of Thomas Keller.

As always, let me know if there is food literature that you're interested in seeing reviewed here!

On My Bookshelf: Michael Ruhlman and Kathleen Flinn

Hello, my name is Krista and I am a reader.

Can I get a collective "Hello, Krista"?

Thank you.  I have been doing a profane act over the last month, cleaning my cookbook shelves.  I have a handful of cookbooks I use all the time, a handful that are mostly aspirational (I'm looking at YOU, Thomas Keller.  No, not you, Ina Garten.  We're still good.  Kisses.) and some that see an occasional use.  In order to make space for newer, shinier cookbooks, I've been culling a few from the shelves.


No, the Keller cookbooks aren't going anywhere.  I still need cookbooks with pretty pictures and things I'm incapable of making.

I also have a shelf of food literature, because sometimes it's as much fun to read about food as it is to actually cook.  I mean, you can read about food at the gym or on a plane, but not so much actually cook in those places.

Cleaning and culling prompted me to re-read a couple of food literature books that are worth recommending to other foodies, Kathleen Flinn's The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry and Michael Ruhlman's The Soul of a Chef.  These books make me want to go back to Paris, go to a top-tier cooking school and never become a professional chef.  Simultaneously.

Flinn's book chronicles a year in which she is downsized from her job in London, decides not to return to her native Seattle, moves to Paris to attend Le Cordon Bleu and gets married.  Although the book was published in 2007 before the financial downturn, it rings especially true in these uncertain economic times.  What would you do if you lost your job and could do the thing that most interested you?  In her case, she is reminded by her new beau that she said she always wanted to attend Le Cordon Bleu.  She packed her bags, moved to Paris with a semester of college French and took all three parts of the school's fundamentals course.  Flinn chronicles the extreme difficulty of the coursework, her relationships with her fellow students from far-flung lands and her struggles with the language with humor and the occasional recipe.  It's a fast, fun read.

Ruhlman's book is divided into three parts, the first of which covers the Certified Master Chef examination at the Culinary Institute of America.  The second covers a chef from Ruhlman's hometown of Cleveland, Michael Symon, as he starts his restaurant Lola.  The final section covers the rise of Thomas Keller from teenager to the owner of the famed French Laundry (the book was published well before he opened his subsequent restaurants). 

Full disclosure:  I've eaten at French Laundry and while I appreciate what Keller does, it's not my favorite kind of dining experience--too fussy, and David and I felt like we had to be on our best behavior.  The dining room had a hushed atmosphere that wasn't conducive to relaxing and enjoying the food.  It just didn't feel fun, plus the tasting menu was too much food even for David, and that's saying something.  Ruhlman is downright reverential about Keller, and while I enjoyed knowing how Keller came to be one of this country's most famous chefs, I didn't feel like it merited a hundred pages.

The Michael Symon section is more interesting, if for no other reason as an example of a kitchen that is run more casually than Keller's.  What I take from this section is how hard it is to open a restaurant, please the public AND the critics and produce food that is consistently true to the chef's vision.

But the first section is easily the best.  Seven established chefs spend ten days at the CIA's Hyde Park campus taking cooking tests on specific skill sets from classical French to nutritional to Asian cuisine.  This includes multiple days where they show up, receive a basket of food and have to design and prepare a menu from it within four to five hours.  This section is intense, a real knuckle-biter:  cooking as a high-wire act, or a suspense story.  I've read this book before, but when I reread this section I literally couldn't put it down.  Several of the chefs don't make it through the entire process, but the ones that remain at the end are distinct characters.  I won't spoil the story--you'll find yourself rooting for them.

I'm always looking for more food literature--if you have suggestions, sound off in the comments section.


Not a great photo of my kitchen, and a whole section of wine and cheese books is hiding behind the dining room table.