Cephalopod Coffeehouse: December 2017

Welcome one and all to the Cephalopod Coffeehouse, a cozy gathering of book lovers, meeting to discuss their thoughts regarding the works they enjoyed most over the previous month.  Pull up a chair, order your cappuccino and join in the fun.  If you wish to add your own review to the conversation, please sign on to the link list at the end of my post.

Title: The Man Who Ate Everything
Author: Jeffrey Steingarten

via Amazon

Jeffrey Steingarten has been the food critic for Vogue magazine since 1989.  The Man Who Ate Everything is a collection his articles, published in 1997.  His work reminds me of Calvin Trillin's which I explored a couple of years ago: a comparable sense of humor, maybe slightly higher brow.  Steingarten is just as enthusiastic an eater as Trillin but he is a far more competent cook, willing to spend hours in his kitchen testing recipes.  He shares Trillin's passion for barbecue, though he is not as partial to one style as Trillin is to Kansas City.  Steingarten even pokes some fun at Trillin by name in his chapter on fruitcake.

Many of the chapters had my mouth watering, none more so than "Playing Ketchup," a self-devised taste test of numerous varieties of the ubiquitous American red sauce.  True to the title of the book, Steingarten's no snob.  While he samples all of the gourmet products he could find, he is partial to good ol' Heinz 57.  In another chapter, Steingarten justifies taking the risks of eating shellfish by resolving not to ski in exchange.  Of course, he doesn't ski anyway.

While I didn't enjoy Steingarten quite as much as I did Trillin, I'm still glad to have read the book and would happily read more.

Please join us and share your own review of your best read from the past month.  This month's link list is below.  I'll keep it open until the end of the day.  I'll post January's tomorrow.  Meetings are the last Friday of each month.  Next gathering is January 26th.

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