At the Kitchen Table
So, there's a new edition of The Joy of Cooking. I gather, from Kim Severson's piece/s in Thursday's Times, that the analytical rigor of former Simon & Schuster editor Maria Guarnaschelli, who oversaw the 1997 overhaul, has been roughed up with Rombauer-Beckerisms. In my opinion, Ms Guarnaschelli created reference work for the modern weekday cook of such excellence that it ought to have been given a name of its own, instead of trading on the Joy brand. I say, now, that I'm not going to buy the new book, but of course I'm going to look at it in the shops. With any luck, I won't be impressed - because I can't have two editions.
I never buy cookbooks anymore, because to make room for a new one means getting rid of an old one. I have more books about food and cooks than I have recipe collections. I have always shared Julia Child's belief that cooking is a matter of mastering certain basic techniques and classic combinations. Like most men, I don't seek novelty on my dinner plate as a matter of course. And I seem to be going through a change of life: food just isn't that interesting anymore. There are a few things that I'm crazy about (my fried chicken, for example), but I am very much someone who eats to live, not the other way round. So I probably all ready have too many cookbooks.
There was also, in the Times, an amusing piece, by Julia Moskin, about the craving for long out-of-print cookbooks. Nach Waxman, proprietor of Kitchen Arts and Letters, reports having over a hundred unfilled requests for Fernand Point's Ma Gastronomie. I myself filled out a request, once, in search of a copy of The Eating-In-Bed Cookbook, by Barbara Ninde Byfield (Macmillan, 1962). Someone gave it to my mother as a joke - I don't think it was I who did - and I dreamed of growing up and feasting on Caesar's Goat and Swordfish Agamemnon. I did bake the Elizabeth Barrett's Brownies for many years. And on one strangely memorable occasion I cooked up an orgy of food to be consumed in bed. Six or seven dishes - just for me! But I'm not nearly decadent enough to lounge for hours over tepidating food. It was fun to prepare and boring to endure. Mr Waxman never came through on the cookbook, but I found it through Alibris.
I know that I promised to tell you what I prepared for last Monday's dinner, but in fact there was no Monday dinner. M le Neveu had to grade mid-terms, and Ms NOLA needed an early night. Stay tuned.
