Mouth Wide Open
A Cook and His Appetite
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Ever since his first book, Simple Cooking, and its acclaimed successors, Outlaw Cook, Serious Pig, and Pot on the Fire, John Thorne has been hailed as one of the most provocative, passionate, and accessible food writers at work today. In Mouth Wide Open, his fifth collection, he has prepared a feast for the senses and intellect, charting a cook's journey from ingredient to dish in illuminating essays that delve into the intimate pleasures of pistachios, the Scottish burr of real marmalade, how the Greeks made a Greek salad, the (hidden) allure of salt anchovies, and exploring the uncharted territory of improvised breakfasts and resolutely idiosyncratic midnight snacks. Most of all, his inimitable warmth, humor, and generosity of spirit inspire us to begin our own journey of discovery in the kitchen and in the age-old comfort and delight of preparing food.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This cornucopia of previously published pieces by James Beard Award winning food writer Thorne, from his newsletter, "Simple Cooking," along with a few from other publications, showcases his relaxed, unfussy attitude, refreshing in this age of cookbook and food-personality overabundance. That casualness comes through on subjects from bagna cauda to pepper pot. It's all foodstuff to him, and his affection for foods of all kinds is boundless. Some of the most intriguing suggestions, reprinted from a regular feature of the newsletter, reflect an awareness that the avocado-green electric range is as legitimate as the Viking. Thorne likes to delve into the source and cultural history of individual dishes, and many spur-of-the-moment concoctions, whose recipes are given, were prepared out of a sense of what-the-heck invention and appetite. He fervently promotes his belief that in every foodie lurks a cook capable of doing wonders with prepared foods, that the opposite also holds, and that the ultimate authority on food is the person eating.
