Earthly Delights

::behind on my reading, but who can turn down a Bacchanal?::

From Harper's Magazine, March 2008: Beltway Bacchanal: Congress lives high on the contributor's dime, by Ken Silverstein. Gastronomical exploits, courtesy of donors.

Sunday Book Review: Service Included by Phoebe Damrosch

Service Included
by Phoebe Damrosch
William Morrow
October 2007
$24.95, 240 pp.
ISBN: 978-0-06-122814-8

Reviewed by guest blogger Kate Soto

“Food porn” gets thrown around a lot these days. People use the term when talking about Whole Foods’ mounds of glistening and overpriced vegetables. They use it when poring over doughy empanadas in Gourmet magazine or when glued to the TV as Anthony Bourdain eats eyeballs in India. Like regular old porn, food porn is a glossier, dramatic, and somehow more absurd version of its referent. It fetishizes the act of eating—a process that, like sex, tends to have a much less glamorous life when out of the limelight.

::New York Diary::January 2008

We were both remarking on how this feels like a dark Alice in Wonderland with the marble tabletops and low cushy regal seats with high backs. There are half price bottles of wine, dark walls, red neon and red light bulbs, and somehow we are both trying to write through all of it, me coming off a buzz, pouring ever more wine, a nice calm smooth Syrah, smelling cheese and chocolate in the air, so close to St. Mark’s Place, me thinking of Eileen Myles, walking past Thompkins Square twice now, getting familiar, slowly, though the crush of humanity will never feel familiar.

Women sitting next to us could be on a date or not. Carrie pours herself more wine. My ankles feel a little tender, having worked all or most of the day. One of the women has a British accent and one is very American, and remarked that she’s taking off her shoes, and I’d love nothing more than to sneak a look and hope that I see her feet in the other woman’s lap, which makes me think of someone else, their lap, their feet, calves, knees under the table…and it makes me look forward to the spring and the summer, high summer, and meeting at The Abbey, the fans doing their back-and-forth above us.

There’s an Abbey bar here, too, and there is a Bourgeois Pig here as well as in Los Angeles, though in L.A. the neon is blue and there’s no alcohol. This place, on the other hand, has no coffee. The scent of fondue and breads and olives snare my attention.

Across from me is this friend of about eighteen years, a photographer and visual artist. Since Sunday we’ve been eating, drinking, walking, lounging and I realize it is too damn easy to drink to excess here but you still get to walk off your drunk on the way to the subway station.

Last night the bartender paid a little more attention to me when I mentioned Luc Sante. Tiny measures of knowledge, like rubies in a palm.

Oh Tom Waits. What would we do without you?

Book Review: Comfort Foods by Kate Jacobs

Review by guest blogger Ginny Buccelli

I once spent an evening trying to bake cookies, but every single egg that I touched broke. First I dropped an entire carton on the floor. Of the few that didn’t break on impact, two fell on the floor during cleanup, another was crushed on its way into the mixing bowl, and at least one fell into the sink. I had to drive across town to borrow six virgin eggs from my best girlfriend. Ultimately the cookies were baked and they were quite tasty, but getting them made was a tedious process that took way too long.

The same can be said for Comfort Foods from Kate Jacobs, author of Friday Night Knitting Club.

yet another guest blogger/reviewer on the way

Hazel Kight will also be joining this little cupcake/snack attack/glass of wine/six pack on the web. Stay tuned!

Come have a drink this Sunday night (Los Angeles)!

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading on Sunday, April 6, 2008

ROB ROBERGE
KAREN HARRYMAN
ANA THORNE
ROBERT D. MONTOYA

Sunday, April 6, 2008
Doors open at 7:00 - Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla@yahoo.com (RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door.
There will be a cash bar.
www.rhapsodomancy.org

More food books on the menu...

Guest blogger Kate Soto will be reviewing food titles on this blog. Stay tuned!

::I'll have 250 literary words on food, please::

Alimentum now has an online bulletin board where you can post menu poems and secret food confessions!
Check it out.

::tidbits::

Coming soon: Guest blogger Ginny Buccelli will be reviewing food-related books!

And, a treat for streaming video fans and food lovers alike: a new food website, foodtube.net. The thought of hours of various videos of cooking, prepping, etc. remind me of my days in adolescence when I took macrobiotic cooking classes in a stranger's condo, and how I loved watching the mirror above her cutting boards and countertops while she described how to make macrobiotic oatmeal cookies; and all the hours spent on couches from Olympia, WA to Los Angeles, CA, happily watching cooking shows on public broadcasting stations on warm, lazy Saturday afternoons. With video recipes from around the world, foodtube.net is sure to be entertaining and delish!

//nibbles//

Absinthe Brasserie and Bar on Saturday night: loud, brassy, sexy. Skipped the parsnip puree and French onion soup (next time, next time) for the spicy fried chickpeas, warm marinated mixed olives with citrus, toasted garlic and cinnamon and cured meats. Yes to the grilled dayboat scallops, celery root purée, Brussels sprouts, mustard oil, and rosemary salt and yes to the kick the mustard oil gave it all. Buttery, buttery scallops. It was sad to see each one, plump, sliced in half, then gone. Gone! Our lips wet with a little red wine. The night another pleasure in a sea of pleasures.

::Edible Book Tea Party in Studio City::

3rd annual event at the Studio City Library Saturday April 5th, 2:30- 4 pm
** Free **
12511 Moorpark Street
(818)755-7873 for more information
"You can toast your favorite author with toast, cook up a tribute to a book you love, honor a cheesy romance with cheese, and literally digest a nursery rhyme, a mystery, a famous poem or The Great American Novel. Enjoy refreshments and admire the culinary tributes until 3:30 when prizes will be awarded. Anyone can create a book to eat"
(you must supply an ingredients list with nuts, milk, and wheat first)

Cook the Books on hiatus for '08

From Frybooks & Cook the Books!:

Hello Dearest Edible Friends -

We have a new web address which replaces the typepad one so PLEASE adjust your links -
www.frybooks.com

We have a marvelous Flickr page of all your fabulous past entries
http://www.flickr.com/photos/frybooks/

Alas, due to a series of unfortunate circumstances, Cook the Books! will be on hiatus for 2008.
We intend to return in 2009 with a new sponsor and location. Please keep in touch, sorry to disappoint.

Farewell for now and don't be a stranger!

Yours in frosting with sprinkles,
Frybooks