About: In this moving culinary account of her family’s immigration from their native Vietnam, restaurateur Nguyen of Sydney, Australia begins: “In my family, food is our language… when we cannot speak the words “I am sorry,” we give this bittersweet soup instead.” Luckily, Nguyen is also skilled in written language; her moving, honest and painful story follows her family’s dramatic exodus from their war-ravaged homeland to the safety of Australia. There, Nguyen’s parents opened the restaurant that would give Pauline and her brother Luke the foundation for their current enterprise, The Red Lantern, one of Sydney’s most popular dining destinations. Worth the price alone is Nguyen’s masterful storytelling, including a warts-and-all look at her family and the immigrant experience. The book’s arc is entirely film-ready; indeed, color images of people, places and dishes are striking. And then there’s the recipes: more than 275 traditional Vietnamese dishes, all relatively simple to prepare (though some might require some tenacious shopping). Nguyen’s wide net catches classic comfort food like Pho Bo Tai Nam, the traditional beef noodle soup, and slow-cooked pork shoulder; fish dishes like Crispy-Skin Snapper with Ginger and Lime Fish Sauce; easy appetizers like Tom Nuong (Soy and Honey Grilled Shrimp); and exotic fare like Durian Ice Cream. Whether you buy it for the story, recipes or both, this is an essential volume for those interested in Vietnamese cooking and culture. From Publishers Weekly.
My Thoughts: Oh, Pauline Nguyen, you totally owe me a brand new keyboard and a box of tissues because I laughed and cried up a storm while reading your memoir-cum-cookbook.
Food and family go hand in hand in Vietnamese culture, so it makes perfect sense that Nguyen combined them in one cohesive tome. What sets Secrets of the Red Lantern apart from other Vietnamese cookbooks on the market is Nguyen’s heart wrenching and uplifting memoir, which is told in a painfully honest voice. The foods and memories that Nguyen reflects upon in Secrets of the Red Lantern are so intimately intertwined that they each become more meaningful when placed in the proper context of her life. At times I found myself flipping quickly through the gorgeous photos and recipes just so that I could find out what happened next—Nguyen’s life is a literal page-turner.
In addition to sharing her personal trials and tribulations with readers, Nguyen is also generous with her family’s treasured recipes, including her father’s top-secret bo kho recipe that surprisingly calls for soda pop and Laughing Cow cheese. I appreciated how the book’s photographs successfully captured the warmth and rustic quality of homemade Vietnamese food.
As a whole, I found Secrets of the Red Lantern very inspiring. While reading this book, I was not only moved to whip up Vietnamese delights, but also to make time to sit down with my grandparents to record my family’s history and recipes. We’ll always have food, but time and memories are fleeting.
Continue reading ‘Secrets of the Red Lantern – Pauline Nguyen’
About: According to The Waiter, eighty percent of customers are nice people just looking for something to eat. The remaining twenty percent, however, are socially maladjusted psychopaths. Waiter Rant offers the server’s unique point of view, replete with tales of customer stupidity, arrogant misbehavior, and unseen bits of human grace transpiring in the most unlikely places. Through outrageous stories, The Waiter reveals the secrets to getting good service, proper tipping etiquette, and how to keep him from spitting in your food. The Waiter also shares his ongoing struggle, at age thirty-eight, to figure out if he can finally leave the first job at which he’s truly thrived.
About: Cupcakes are everyone’s favorite little indulgences. They’re loved by kids and adults alike because they’re playfully sweet as well as utterly charming. These days, cupcakes can be found in bakeries everywhere, but with just a little know-how, you can easily bake your own tempting boutique-bakery cupcakes at home and decorate them with flair.
About: Cooking for Mr. Latte is a modern dating story, recipes included. It’s the true story of the courtship between Amanda Hesser, a food writer for The New York Times and author of the award-winning cookbook The Cook and the Gardener, and writer Tad Friend, the titular Mr. Latte. Her tale ends happily ever after, but has enough ups and downs to keep it interesting. Food is an important aspect of Hesser’s life (though it wasn’t for Mr. Latte when they met, making for some of the downs in the ups and downs), but it’s not until you notice how seamlessly Hesser weaves her meals into her story that you realize how much of our lives and our memories revolve around food. Leora Y. Bloom – Amazon.com Review.
About: A mishmash of foodie writers dispute, humorously or more self-seriously, the pros and cons of cooking and dining alone. While eating by oneself can be the busy worker’s greatest pleasure, as Colin Harrison notes of his solitary Manhattan lunches during a work day (“Out to Lunch”), and mother Holly Hughes (“Luxury”) agrees is a secret but too rare pleasure, other writers see it as depressing or shameful. In “The Lonely Palate,” Laura Calder quotes Epicurus as saying, “we should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink”—then offers a recipe for Kippers Mash. Eating is an act of love, thus prompting Jonathan Ames (“Poisonous Eggs”) to dine out and flirt with the waitress. “Table for One” by Erin Ergenbright records how the single diner is perceived uneasily by the wait staff. And M.F.K. Fisher relishes solitary dining (“A Is for Dining Alone”) as a way to escape “the curious disbelieving impertinence of the people in restaurants.” The collection is named after an essay by Laurie Colwin, who found a dozen different ways to cook eggplant on her two-burner hot plate while living alone in a tiny Greenwich Village flat. (From Publishers Weekly, July)
