Best Food Writing 2016

Description

Like your favorite local grocery store, with its sushi bar, fresh baked goods, and maybe a very obliging butcher, Best Food Writing offers a bounty of everything in one place. For seventeen years, Holly Hughes has delved into piles of magazines and newspapers, scanned endless websites and blogs, and foraged through bookstores to provide a robust mix of what's up in the world of food writing. From the year's hottest trends (this year: meal kits and extreme dining) to the realities of everyday meals and home cooks (with kids, without; special occasions and every day) to highlighting those chefs whose magic is best spun in their own kitchens, these essays once again skillfully, deliciously evoke what's on our minds-and our plates. Pull up a chair. Contributors include: Betsy Andrews Jessica Battilana John Birdsall Matt Buchanan Jennifer Cockrall-King Tove Danovich Laura Donohue Daniel Duane Victoria Pesce Elliott Edward Frame Phyllis Grant Andrew Sean Greer Kathy Gunst L. Kasimu Harris Steve Hoffman Dianne Jacob Rowan Jacobsen Pableaux Johnson Howie Kahn Mikki Kendall Brian Kevin Kat Kinsman Todd Kliman Julia Kramer Corby Kummer Francis Lam Rachel Levin Brett Martin Tim Neville Chris Newens James Nolan Keith Pandolfi Carol Penn-Romine Michael Procopio Kathleen Purvis Alice Randall Besha Rodell Helen Rosner Michael Ruhlman Oliver Sacks Andrea Strong Jason Tesauro Toni Tipton-Martin Wells Tower Luke Tsai Max Ufberg Debbie Weingarten Pete Wells Review: Multiple Food Writers From Diverse Backgrounds Featured - This kindlebook that is Best Food Writing 2016 edited by Holly Hughes is a kindlebook that I am lucky/fortunate to have purchased by January 13, 2018 via desertcart. There is a multitude of food writing references in this kindlebook to include: a writer affiliated with Oakland California who has been featured in Bon Appetit magazine, some sandwich called the Darger that has pork meat chips of a vegetable pickled in pink lemonade, a food writer who has done work with Saveur and Eater magazine, a restaurant critic referenced who has been affiliated with East Bay Express an Oakland California based weekly media outlet, a food journalist based in Canada recalls her dining calendar that has featured “one night only chef collaborations, community hall culinary takeovers/invitation only dinners where the destination is revealed at the last moment, an author who is a caterer transitioned into a food writer and affiliated with the seriouseats website recalls her experience of what it feels like to write a cookbook, an author who is listed to have written fourteen cookbooks and affiliated with the Washington Post recalls some experienced that helped elevate her baker skills/talents, a former dancer and now pastry chef who has been a judge in an annual cookbook tournament sponsored by Food 52, an author based in Canada explains one of her early childhood experiences that shaped why she likes mangos, an author who was born in Australia raised in the United States and why she enjoys fried seafood from the Carolina coast, experiences of a Miami Herald restaurant critic who was born and grew up in Miami including a recipe for her mom’s meatballs, a New Orleans based writer whose work was apparently featured in the HBO series Treme, a food writer who has lived in Spain India China and South America before moving to New Orleans, a Travel & Leisure author recalls an interview with a chef originally from Denmark who has done pop-up series dinners in New York where the dinner locations and invitees were kept secret until around 90 minutes before the event, a Bon Appetit writer originally from the Midwest part of the U.S. who is ow based/lives in New York City, a writer who has written for Outside magazine, New York Times and Skiing recalls who a two year career role with the Swiss Broadcasting Corps in Bern Switzerland shaped some of his food experiences and more. Review: Always a solid read - The best of this year's crop of Best Writing. I think it's consistently one of the best, unlike the Best American Essays and the Best Science and Nature Writing, because it doesn't pick a celebrity editor. Holly Hughes picks consistently great pieces, timely and timeless, and that's, in part, I think, because she has grown into the role. Nothing against any of the celeb editors of the other collections, but I feel there may be too much pressure in them to feel they have to present THEMSELVES in their essay collection--that the essays they select are more about us thinking about the editor as a Really Smart Person, or a Really Politically Hip Person, than what is great writing. This book ranges from the pretensions of the too rich (seriously, dinnerinthesky is actually a thing?!) and foods that you or I, average readers, will never know or experience (bioluminescent squid, anyone?) to the home and rustic (artisanal baking, farm-to-table and its weaknesses, chicken tenders). It's a good mix. You learn, you meet people who think about food in ways most of us don't, and you learn to appreciate the food you do have in new ways, too. There are stories of family (Mom's Meatballs) and immigration (The Meaning of Mangoes) and culture (Charred and Feathered--about puffin meat). And of course, as the two other essay collections also have, an essay by the late, and great, Oliver Sacks, an elegaic piece on food and communion and death. It's an adventure in a book--you travel to Mexico City and get ill on mezcal, you hit the hidden hit in Penn Station, and journey for the perfect fondue. It's a great read, with many of the essays being 'snack size' or, 'amuse bouche' sized.