Keeping the Feast: One Couple’s Story of love, Food and Healing in Italy
Riverhead, 259 pp., $25.95
Life doesn’t always turn out quite the way we had planned. Foreign correspondents Paula Butturini and John Tagliabue were living a charmed existence, falling in love in Rome in 1985, marrying four years later. and then their world collapsed. They moved to Warsaw and Tagliabue was almost killed by a sniper while reporting in Romania. He recovered physically but not psychologically, falling into a deep depression. Moving back to Rome, they hoped the city, the food and their friends would work their magic once again. Butturini’s touching memoir proves that daily routines can be comforting and that mealtime should always be a celebration.
— Craig Wilson
The Butcher and the Vegetarian: One Woman’s Romp through a World of Men, Meat, and Moral Crisis
Rodale, 228 pp., $23.99
When Tara Austen Weaver’s doctor says eating meat may be the best prescription for her deteriorating health, she grabs a knife and fork and boldly sets forth on a journey of epicurean discovery. It isn’t easy. Raised vegetarian, she doesn’t know how to buy meat, much less cook it. and then there’s the question of how the thought of eating meat grosses her out. she learns the ways of meateaters from chefs, butchers and ranchers. some may find her forthright journey more entrancing than Julie & Julia. Its honesty and surprise ending are delightful.
— Carol Memmott
The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to stop Spending and love the Stove
Tired of what she considered subpar restaurant food at inflated prices, Cathy Erway decided to take a stand. her memoir, about not eating out in New York City, where restaurant dining is a crucial part of the culture, deserves a toast. her fearless approach to home cooking pays off with some revelatory results. two tasty tidbits: Spicy tripe menudo soup really does help cure a hangover, and Dumpster diving isn’t as disgusting as it seems. and while her (now ex-) boyfriend didn’t appreciate her culinary evolution, she has a group of friends who do. best of all, her recipes are accessible and affordable.
— Korina Lopez
Corked
Grand Central, 228 pp., $23.99
“Corked” is a wine term referring to a bottle befouled by bacteria that results in an off odor, an unpalatable product and a ticked-off consumer. In that sense, Kathryn Borel was dead-on in choos- ing the title for this failed marriage of memoir, chick lit and wine travelogue. the setup is messy but promising: She’s coping with having killed a pedestrian in a car accident, is distraught over a fizzled romance and trying to reconnect with her quirky-jerky, aging gourmand father on a road trip through the vineyards of France. But the execution is one long w(h)ine: none of the principals is appealing, and we learn more about vomiting and vehicular ineptitude than vinification.
— Jerry Shriver
