Eating

From Publishers Weekly

Former Random House editor Epstein (_Book Business: Publishing Past, Present and Future_) combines his literary lunches with a personal, tried-and-true collection of meals and recipes. The breezy memoir touches on mayonnaise-rich dishes he's eaten with famous friends and neighbors—Olaf Olafsen, Norman Mailer and Jane Jacobs—in between recollection of childhood visits to Maine and recent trips to Sag Harbor, Long Island. Accompanying the stories are recipes meant to resemble conversations, mixed in with peculiar advice on sourcing ingredients and detailed tips on technique. Epstein—who readily admits he still doesn't think of Manhattan as home because of its lack of Ipswich clams—is most comfortable on the New England shore, if his recipes for salmon roe, lobster rolls and fried clams are any indication. While Epstein blends the down-home simplicity of chicken pot pie with the kind of dowdy French classics once served in lower Manhattan, his trips with chef Alice Waters to Craig Claiborne's lunch parties and suggestions for hard-to-find ingredients and out-of-print books cultivate a stuffy air of exclusivity, a tone tempered by the softer, improvisational voice from his kitchen. Be warned, the book's mouthwatering narrative recipes—from steak tartare enclosed in burnt hamburger crust to a simple braised duck with olives—might spur more than a couple of trips to the kitchen. (Oct.)
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Review

“_Eating_ is an unpretentious chronicle of an extraordinary life well lived, an antidote of sorts in this age of . . . meals made in an ever-decreasing number of minutes. To read it is to vow to live better.” —_Newsweek
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“Full of anecdotes and his gusto for food and life . . .  Epstein has produced a book that will warm readers’ hearts.” —_The Washington Times
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“[Epstein] treats us to a cornucopia of memories—some personal, some literary, all tied to food—and as many interesting recipes as ruminations. . . . A delight.” —_The Wall Street Journal _

“Delicious. . . . [Epstein] has been present for (or hosted) some of the greatest, most unhinged literary dinner parties of our time.” —_The New York Times
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“This convivial memoir by a distinguished publisher charts a lifetime of cooking and consumption. . . . Enlivening.” —_The New Yorker _
 
“What a storyteller! He brings food into the cultural experience in a beautiful way.” —Alice Waters  
 
“The conversational recipes and fond descriptions carry a clear intimation of how one should really live, the very thing that is so compelling in M. F. K. Fisher and Julia Child.” —James Salter, coauthor of Life Is Meals

“As Proust demonstrated with his madeleine, taste is a powerful unleasher of memories. Epstein’s book, like M.F.K. Fisher’s The Art of Eating, Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking and, more recently, Amanda Hesser’s Cooking for Mr. Latte,_ _tucks recipes into an entertaining, alternately informative and autobiographical narrative. . . . Eating . . . works for armchair cooks as well as active chefs, and has the advantage of being calorie-free.” —_San Francisco Chronicle<.i> _