Amanda Hesser

This slim collection of gastronomic essays from the New York Times is like an hors d’oeuvre; not quite enough to satisfy your appetite, but enough to stimulate it for something more substantial later on. You might, indeed, run straight to your kitchen to experiment with one of the recipes included here, but you’re more likely to be seen scanning your bookshelves for something good and meaty like Bill Buford’s Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and show more Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany (Vintage) or Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly.

Not that this book isn’t as enjoyable as a good artichoke dip with pita chips. It seems unlikely that Colson Whitehead will convince you to forgo dessert with his essay, “I Scream,” but you’ll certainly understand why he does after reading about his summers working in an ice cream shop at the beach. Dawn Drzal’s essay about an uncomfortable interview with M.F.K. Fisher, the doyenne of food writing, is a sad tale of the havoc old age wreaks on our bodies. Yiyun Li’s story about how Tang once seemed like a magical, unobtainable treat, “Orange Crush,” gives us a peek at life in China in the 1960s. George Saunders’s “The Absolutely No-Anything Diet,” about how he gained 10 pounds by eating and drinking nothing but water, made me think about how I can gain an inch around my hips just be looking at Haagen-Daazs in the freezer at the grocery store (and the recipe for Sanders’s “Light-As-Air Brunch” is even funnier). Allen Shawn’s “Family Menu,” the tale of his mentally-retarded sister’s annual birthday luncheon and the year the menu changed, will touch your heart.

The recipes sound good, too, though I’ve not yet tried my hand at any of them. John Robin Baitz, in “American Dreams,” his essay about teenage life in Durban, South Africa, concludes with a recipe for Durban lamb curry with tomato and mint sambal that sounds frightfully complicated but completely delicious. I’m not sure I’m up to attempting the recipe for cream of watercress soup with caviar that comes from Taillevent, a French restaurant that boasts two Michelin stars, but I wouldn’t mind trying it in Paris, as Ann Patchett did in “Paris Match.” I think the shrimp with garlic – gambas al ajillo – described in Gary Shteyngart’s “The Sixth Sense” sounds the most scrumptious, especially since I can sympathize with Shteyngart’s longing for garlic as a child: my mother never used the pungent and fragrant bulb in her cooking, either.

You could probably gobble up all these essays in a single sitting, as I did, or parcel them out for a little taste at a time over days in order to savor them more completely. Either way, though, you’re going to be hungry for more good writing about food than this book can provide. Maybe Frank Bruni’s memoir, Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-time Eater should be waiting for you when you finish Eat, Memory. Or maybe you’ll just be plain hungry, in which case I recommend that you go shopping with this book in hand. In either case, this book will unquestionably leave you wanting more. show less

I don't know about the great in "Great Writers" but it was very enjoyable. More a collection of amuses than a main dish but very good amuses. The only difficulty I have with this book has more to do with me than with the book. The stories, to be appreciated for all they are worth, should be read seperately, I think and not, as I did, in two sessions.

I fell in love with Amanda Hesser and her writing several years ago when I read The Cook and The Gardener. That was a tale of her year in France cooking in the country with the cooperation (and sometimes vituperation) of the gardener on the estate. Cooking For Mr. Latte brings her back to Manhattan where she tells the tale of her meeting, courtship and ultimate marriage to the man of her dreams. Ms. Hesser is a food writer and, as such, she must sample restaurant fare that most of us can show more only dream of, not to mention travel around the world in search of foodie destinations. She meets Mr. Latte on a blind date which doesn't start off auspiciously. She takes us through the evolution of the romance with a light hand and many, many delicious sounding recipes. I'd like to say I will make everything in this book but the truth is I will probably take some of the ideas and add them to my repertoire. We meet not only Mr. Latte, but his family and Ms. Hesser's and learn quite a lot about them. Amanda Hesser has such a light touch in her writing that I compare it to gossamer. Reading her is like waking up on a summer morning in a beach house right on the ocean. Delicious. show less

The strength of this book is the voice -- never self-pitying, often very funny, and smart. The cover is misleading; this isn't chick lit. This is a book by a grownup, about an adult relationship, and a love-standing love affair with food. You can, by the way, tell that this was published a few years back -- nary a word on ethics or environmental impact; plus the recipes are clear, written for someone with a real kitchen, and this book makes me miss Hesser's writing in the NYT Dining section show more so much. (Yes, I know, she got promoted to editing the Culture section of the magazine, I don't care.) show less