A Sweet Spoonful

You know where to find Grains of Paradise (or even what they are) and smoked paprika. You love beets, fatty fish, and biscotti. You use the word “tangle” to describe salads, judge people for their restaurant choices, and hate doing dishes in the morning. You are Amanda Hesser–or, at least, share some of her endearing, neurotic traits.

A food writer for The New York Times, Hesser’s writing is luminous, visual, and snappy. Good food writing literally picks you up and draws you into a tactile world in which you’re literally sitting at a country table alone at dusk, at a busy wedding banquet, or on the floor of a bare apartment listening to an ambulance drive by. In short, you’re not at home holding a book thinking about laundry or work deadlines. With Hesser, I was transported to a summer afternoon in Maine or her back balcony in Brooklyn Heights. I read “Cooking For Mr. Latte” in a day and a half; I lay in bed drinking it all in, mentally cataloging all of the recipes I’d try and becoming immersed in the back story of dating Mr. Latte (later we learn, Tad), eventually getting married, moving to Brooklyn, and coming to terms with family/friends/changing relationships. Essentially: the pedestrian elements of daily life that we all experience. Yet most of us don’t draw it out in such a sensuous, affable way.

When talking about old friends, Hesser writes: “When dining out, she does not order salad. She will begin with foie gras or sardines and move on to things like braised rabbit, lamb, and pheasant. When she shops for groceries, she buys her cheeses, olives, and wine from the Wine and Cheese Cask on the corner of Washington and Kirkland, bread from Hi-Rise, and her meats from a butcher. Nan understands that it is all right to buy a good pate for an appetizer, and that one perfect croissant is better than five good muffins. She is a dedicated minimalist who knows how to be generous” (182). I now know Nan. Hesser excels at small details that illuminate character fully in a matter of seconds–what any good writer strives for.

When talking about food in her chapter “Single Cuisine,” Hesser writes: “I might toss a poached egg with pasta, steamed spinach and good olive oil, and shower it with freshly grated nutmeg and cheese. Or, I might press a hard boiled egg through a sieve and sprinkle the fluffy egg curds over asparagus. It’s not traditional comfort food, but it works for me. I like rich, full flavors paired with clean bitter ones–a gentle lull and a bracing finish” (288). The way in which Hesser describes her simple meals alone is the same exact way I felt while relishing her sweet food memoir: a gentle lull as I lay squandering away the afternoon, and a bracing finish when I turned the last page. I was sad to leave Brooklyn, intimate dinner parties and trips to the market, and genuine vignettes about navigating through the food world–one day at a time.

Stand-out recipes in the collection include: Beet and Ginger Soup, Chicken Salad w/ Basil Mayonnaise, Chocolate “dump-it” cake (her mother’s go-to birthday cake recipe), and Mountain Honey Gingersnaps with Candied Ginger.

For more of Amanda Hesser, catch her upcoming project Food52.com, a recipe sharing/contest/archive that will culminate in a cookbook compilation. With Amanda at the helm, it promises to be a gracious and tantalizing endeavor. I want to be her when I grow up.

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