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Foodies: Good Reads for Valentine’s Day
Food enthusiasts read more than cookbooks. A good gastronome library is peppered with books about kitchen culture, culinary theory, food policy, biography, memoir, and more. Some encourage a reader to indulge, and suddenly, at 11 PM, you’re foraging the fridge for that last piece of Humbolt Fog. Others make you think: Did I just eat irradiated meat? Or was it cold pasteurized? And some inspire nightmares of “processed corn, walking” along the banks of high fructose corn syrup rivers. The omnireader’s dilemma! Other books are comforting food for thought. They take you in and make you fall in love with food, or with cooking, or with a chef.
Since love is in the air this week, here’s a list of books that the foodie in your life will be sure to love!
1. Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain
2. Death by Pad Thai: And Other Unforgettable Meals, Douglass Bauer
3. A Devil in the Kitchen, Marco Pierre White
4. Tender at the Bone, Ruth Reichl
5. The Gastronomical Me, M.F.K. Fisher
[Note: And don’t forget Gabrielle Hamilton’s Blood, Bones and Butter, Frank Bruni’s Born Round, Laura Schenone’s The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken and Louise DeSalvo’s Crazy in the Kitchen.
Not that it matters (except that we are NJPROUD, as our bumper sticker says), but Schenone and DeSalvo are NJ authors–Montclair, as it happens.–Eric Levin, senior editor]
OPENED
Seasons 52 Opens at Edison’s Menlo Park Mall
Seasons 52, a seasonal fresh grill and wine bar, has opened at the Menlo Park Mall. The Edison location will premiere with the winter menu, which includes a warm tomato caprese salad; lobster and fresh mozzarella flatbread; lemon and herb-roasted whole branzino. A circular piano bar featuring live music nightly, an open kitchen with a brick oven, a chef’s table and a customized, climate-controlled wine chateau round out the dining experience. The restaurant also will offer two private dining rooms for private and semi-private business and social events. Seasons 52 at Menlo Park Mall will be open daily for lunch from 11 AM–4 PM and serving dinner from 4–10 PM (Fridays and Saturdays until 11 PM). The restaurant will have live entertainment each night from 6 PM to closing.
NO CLOSINGS OR MOVES THIS WEEK