Love and Kisses and a Halo of Truffles: Letters to Helen Evans Brown - Hardcover

Beard, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1559702648 ISBN 13: 9781559702645

Publisher: Arcade Publishing, 1994

Synopsis

A selection of letters by a celebrated culinary master, as written to his close friend and a fellow chef, follows their twelve-year correspondence during which they exchanged success stories, cooking tips, and creative recipes.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

Thirteen years (195264) of letters from James Beard, with just enough interspersed replies from West Coast culinary colleague Helen Evans Brown to reveal that more of her voice would have improved this volume. Harcourt Brace editor Ferrone offers excerpts from 300 of approximately 450 extant letters. The documents have been edited silently, and the man who emerges is convivial but shallow and in some ways insecure. These pages are dominated by what Beard cooks and eats and with whom he is eating. (Not surprisingly, the need to diet is a recurring theme.) While readers may cull a few ideas (in addition to those in recipes at the end of the volume), ultimately they receive a picture of a limited person: Who else could lunch with Alice B. Toklas and record only what they ate? Who could dine with wine expert Alexis Lichine and name the foods only, not the wines? Occasionally, others in the culinary field come under Beard's critical eye, with Dione Lucas, a ``great technician who doesn't know about food,'' earning particular attention. In 1952, Beard writes, ``I am always poor nowadays,'' and this becomes a familiar refrain, despite a full (and lucrative) schedule of writing books and articles, giving classes and demonstrations, appearing on radio and television, and acting as a corporate consultant. Brown, for her part, resists suggestions to move east and join his schemes for a cooking school or supply store, and her rare comments add some needed spice. (It's interesting to note that Beard had actually proposed publishing their joint correspondence, then discarded Brown's letters.) It is Brown who chastises Beard for publishing individually some material they accumulated for a joint cookbook and reminds him not to insult women cooks: ``They buy most of your books.'' More a parade of menu items than a life, this one is bland reading for all but the most serious students of the Master. (8 pages b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Booklist:

Perhaps the best way to know a chef is to read his recipes and cook his creations. In this case, readers should rush out and get any of James Beard's classic cookery books. This collection of letters from Beard to Helen Evans Brown, a respected food writer on the West Coast, reveals little of the man but enough of his gastronomical excesses to last nonfoodies a lifetime. Beard wanted to act but instead turned to cooking. A dramatic bent infuses his amusing descriptions of meals horrible and sublime, an endless string of multicourses that frequently sent him to bed with charcoal tablets and gastric upset. Even meeting Marilyn Monroe gets sandwiched between an account of overindulgence and public reaction to his caviar omlette. When he sits down to his umpteenth meal in Paris, and then goes on to describe yet another meal, "wishing I never had to think of food again," it is clear that Beard and his gargantuan presence were nothing without the mention of food. Readers of these letters could be forgiven for thinking that, as a man, he amounted to little else. Deanna Larson-Whiterod

About this edition

• Publisher: Arcade Publishing
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 1559702648
• ISBN 13: 9781559702645
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 418