Eating

July 6, 2009
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.