Feeding a Yen: Savoring Local Specialties from Kansas City to Cuzco
Author: Calvin Trillin
Calvin Trillin has never been a champion of the “continental cuisine” palaces he used to refer to as La Maison de la Casa House. What he treasures is the superb local specialty. And he will go anywhere to find one. As it happens, some of his favorite dishes can be found only in their place of origin. Join Trillin on his charming, funny culinary adventures as he samples fried marlin in Barbados and the barbecue of his boyhood in Kansas City. Travel alongside as he hunts for the authentic fish taco, and participates in a “boudin blitzkrieg” in the part of Louisiana where people are accustomed to buying these spicy sausages and polishing them off in the parking lot. (“Cajun boudin not only doesn’t get outside the state, it usually doesn’t even get home.”) In New York, Trillin even tries to use a glorious local specialty, the bagel, to lure his daughters back from California. Feeding a Yen is a delightful reminder of why New York magazine called Calvin Trillin “our funniest food writer.”
The Chicago Sun-Times</i>
Nobody else can write about food with the good cheer of this Manhattan sophisticate, who can wield an anchovy fork with brio and skill at the Four Seasons but really prefers tucking into the good messy stuff of Flyover Land. — Henry Kisor
Publishers Weekly
These 14 essays-which first appeared in the New Yorker and other magazines but have been reworked to form a cohesive whole-nearly all grow out of Trillin's concept of a "register of frustration and deprivation." Recorded are the delicacies that have not taken root in his otherwise fertile home turf of Greenwich Village. For those better acquainted with Trillin's droll humor than his culinary predilections, it should be noted that Trillin is no snooty foodie. His abiding enthusiasm for various dishes is matched by a disdain for "review trotters," and the objects of his affection are more homey than rarefied: Louisiana boudin, Santa Fe posole, pimientos de Padron and Kansas City barbecue, for instance. About these products, he crafts writing that meanders but always finds its center. The deadpan wit, deprecating himself as much as others, remains at a slow simmer throughout. Just as the theme of longing is in danger of becoming repetitive, Trillin throws in a couple of pieces that break the mold but not the rhythm of the book. For Trillin's many fans, it has been too long since a new collection of his food writing has made its way to market-1984's Third Helpings was the last volume strictly devoted to his gastronomic exploits. However briefly, this should sate their longings. (May) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
This collection of food essays by humorist, novelist, and satirical poet Trillin (Tepper Isn't Going Out) centers on culinary oddities around the world. Trillin makes semireligious pilgrimages to remote places in search of the best examples of local cuisine, be it pumpernickel bagels or Ecuadorian ceviche, usually prepared by ordinary folks in neighborhood restaurants. He's an adventurous chowhound with a taste for the unusual and makes wry observations on culture and food with his trademark wit and gentle sarcasm. He avoids the "Zagat-clutching foodies" but meets quite a few like-minded individuals in his travels. Several of these essays have previously appeared in The New Yorker and Gourmet magazine, but they benefit from being collected together, as his gustatory to-do list of favorite dishes ultimately comprises a "Register of Frustration and Deprivation." When he finally does get to satisfy one of his longings, he writes, "My intention was simple. I was going to eat enough of such food to hold me for a while." Recommended for all public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/03.]-Julie James, Thomasville P.L., NC Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
The chowhound pursues soul-stirring, pulse-elevating food from one eatery to another, over many a mile. When the times were hard, "there was nothing to do but keep eating," writes Trillin (Tepper Isn't Going Out, 2002, etc.) in a collection that relates to foodstuffs the way others might refer to passages from holy books. Let us give thanks to the saving graces of Chinese restaurants, from Ecuador to Nauru, Paris to Prague; to that gnarly pumpernickel bagel that might lure the writer's daughter back to his hometown New York; to all those bistros and neighborhood markets that fill him up in ways the more famous destinations never do, those temples where he "can't seem to help wondering, when [his] mind wanders between forkfuls, whether God really intended all that to be done to food." Likewise, Trillin is willing to pay the dues of the pilgrim on a quest, journeying far and enduring the foul in search of the sublime—like a string of boudin, for example, proving the Cajun dictum "the best boudin is always the boudin closest to where you live" (as long as you live in Louisiana). Better yet, there's the Cajun wisdom that says you ought to eat your purchase in the parking lot of the place you bought it in, minutes after buying. Trillin is ready to sample 20 bowls of ceviche, knowing he "would wake up the next morning feeling a bit fragile." His Register of Frustration and Deprivation, foods he is denied because he isn't geographically positioned to get them, is as plentiful as his turn-downs are rare: "Would it be fair to say that you're wimping out on the guinea pig?" his daughter asks on a visit to a restaurant in Peru. Fighting for human rights, writing the perfect poem, discoveringcures for mortal diseases: these are endeavors Trillin would consider deserving of our admiration, thank you. And you can add to that "the ability to read the wall signs in Chinese restaurants."
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Tale of Two Valleys: Wine, Wealth and the Battle for the Good Life in Napa and Sonoma
Author: Alan Deutschman
It’s Napa versus Sonoma, and the antics are rampant!
When acclaimed Vanity Fair journalist Alan Deutschman came to the California wine country as the lucky house guest of very rich friends, he was surprised to find a civil war being fought between Napa Valley, which epitomized prestige and wealthy excess, and neighboring Sonoma Valley, a ragtag bohemian enclave so stubbornly backward that rambunctious chickens wandered freely through town. In A Tale of Two Valleys, Deutschman wittily captures these stranger-than-fiction locales and uncorks the hilarious absurdities of life among the wine world’s glitterati. The cast of characters brims with eccentrics, egomaniacs, and a mysterious man in black who crashed the elegant Napa Valley Wine Auction before proceeding to pay a half-million dollars for a single bottle. What develops is nothing less than the struggle for the soul of one of America’s last bits of paradise.
A San Francisco Chronicle bestseller
The New York Times
As depicted in this ardent and amusing travelogue, Sonoma is a place in transition and perhaps in jeopardy. This part of wine country has a bohemian atmosphere that reminds Mr. Deutschman of Berkeley, making its full-time residents that much more resentful of wealthy new weekend people as they encroach. (A really exclusive event, Mr. Deutschman says, is liable to be held on a Tuesday night when they are not around.) Meanwhile, in nearby Napa Valley, land prices have skyrocketed to drive out pockets of free-spirited eccentricity; here the resorts and the rich hold sway. This book treats Napa as Sonoma's worst nightmare. — Janet Maslin
The Washington Post
Deutschman's tales of rebels in paradise, wealthy weekenders trying to go native and the "glassy-winged sharpshooter," an invasive insect that threatens to suck the water out of the wine, make for a fun read, although one often as light as the lavender-flavored crиme brыlйe he eats at the end of a well-described local feast. — David Helvarg
Publishers Weekly
In this brief, intoxicating book, Vanity Fair contributor Deutschman (The Second Coming of Steve Jobs) chronicles the year or so he spent as a freeloading guest at some of the finest homes in the Sonoma and Napa valleys in the heart of California's near-mythic wine country. He eavesdrops on conversations at the cafe and bookstore, talks to locals at the Tuesday farmer's market and indulges in bottle after bottle of fine wine (one even costing half a million dollars) at the best tables. While he is not shy about writing about his personal pleasure with life in the valley, he is no mere hedonist. He's also a fine reporter, who documents the force new tech money pouring in from Silicon Valley is exerting on the shabby gentility of the wine region. After revisiting some of the same territory covered earlier by James Conaway in Napa and The Far Side of Eden, Deutschman picks up the story in present-day Sonoma with the community's efforts to defeat the very same kind of luxury resorts that first made Napa the darling of glossy travel magazines. He serves up the drama glass by glass, starting with a rather mellow debate over loose chickens in the town square, building to the battle between the town folk and a luxury hotel developer, and culminating in an election fight between the new professional class and the bohemians for control of the Sonoma City Council. What remains longest in the memory are his portraits of the wine makers themselves-some known stars, such as Jean Phillips, proprietor of cult winery Screaming Eagle, and others less so. Rarely has such an exclusive world and its inhabitants been made so accessible. (Apr.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
Deutschman (The Second Coming of Steve Jobs) has written a highly readable account of life and strife in two of California's eminent wine valleys-Napa and Sonoma. In his view, Napa has fallen victim to the excesses of skyrocketing real estate prices, luxury estates, and pursuit of the perfect wine. Sonoma is poised to follow the same path unless an assorted group of organic farmers, retirees, and aging hippies can prevent it. Deutschman gives us his impressions of their successes and setbacks as they win city council seats, argue among themselves, fight off a luxury resort, and create a nature preserve. His book's strength, however, is its many striking (and not always flattering) profiles of people who shaped Napa's and Sonoma's past and are shaping the valleys' futures. Recommended for general interest readers and public libraries wherever winemaking is a way of life. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/02.]-Andrea Dietze, Orange Cty. P.L., Santa Ana, CA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A skimming visit to the cultural-political dichotomy incarnated by the Napa and Sonoma valleys. They may be neighbors, but they have gone their separate ways: Napa went upscale, elegant, and refined; Sonoma kept it real and welcomed the bohemians. Journalist Deutschman (The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, 2000) embraces this bifurcation—the irreverent and anachronistic vs. New Money, the innocents vs. the soulless, elitism vs. small town, residents vs. weekenders, Sebastiani vs. Mondavi—and quickly throws his lot with the free spirits and iconoclasts. They are an appealing group: subversive, mischievous, and fully aware that they are on to something very special in their Sonoma Valley homes. The Napa-ites are far less attractive, typified by the notorious Wine Auction and restaurants in which the farmers who supply the tony vegetables couldn't afford to eat. Of course, they make excruciatingly easy targets: "The plutocrats . . . could they ever imagine that they are making pilgrimages to listen to trailer people?" Readers may be irked or uncomfortable with this neat parting of the waters, figuring that maybe there is something under the crust that ought to be poked at. Not Deutschman, who operates in only a small amount of the acreage he could explore, spending most of his time following a local election and the fate of a couple of land-use initiatives. These are not uninteresting, and their impact will be critical to the future of Sonoma. But readers will wish for other impressions than those radiated by Deutschman's small circle of friends. When a small-scale farmer suggests that a ballot initiative isn't "as simple as people are making it out to be. People haven't looked at itfrom a whole perspective," Deutschman characteristically fails to pull that comment up and thoroughly examine its roots. The characters and mindsets he portrays here are overly flogged and easily pigeonholed; a sampling from deeper down, where it might be democratically messy and maybe even revelatory, would have been nice. Readable, but shallow and too neat.
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