A memory of the past of Diet Cokes

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Dwight Garner is a famous book reviewer The New York Times. That is to say, an avid reader. He is also an avid food enthusiast and his upcoming book combines those twin passions, like jam with bread, in the most delicious way. The title says it all: The charcuterie above: about eating, reading, reading about eating and eating while reading (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, available October 24).

“The delicatessen upstairs” is a phrase that critic Seymour Krim uses to refer to his memory. Garner’s deli upstairs is well stocked. “Other books have approached food from the context of literature,” he notes. But they tend to regurgitate the same old references, like Proust’s madeleines or Boeuf en daube. to the lighthouse. Garner’s overall vision is more eclectic, leaning toward what he describes as the “Diet Coke and Potato Chips” end of the spectrum, and a lot funnier.

Garner leans toward what he describes as the “Diet Coke and chips” end of the spectrum.

Having drawn in his formative years as a chubby boy whose after-school reading was accompanied by pretzels and cookies and whose mother’s food (“her softness of hot buttered noodles”) he could not get enough of, we are invited to disquisitions above all. from literary breakfasts (kudos to author Peter De Vries for calling the thinking person’s cereal “Joyce Carol Oates”) to the “long and generous” working lunch.

There are many life lessons to be found here. How to deal with a hangover (Kingsley Amis style), what to do with potatoes if you have arthritis (courtesy of Jessica Mitford), how to make a sitting plan (thanks to Tina Brown) and what to do if you’re sitting between two orifices (what which host Sally Quinn calls the seat “gristle”). According to writer Virginia Faulkner and diplomat Jerry Wadsworth, questions guaranteed to liven up the conversation include: “Do you wet the bed?” and “Do you like ropes?” Try them sometime.

Garner’s book also offers examples of how No live. I suggest you not participate in a “Mazola party,” the game Julia Child’s friends played that required a dozen men and a dozen women, a tiled room, Mazola cooking oil, and everyone getting naked.

Musings on sex abound, including this salty comment about poultry: “Michael Ruhlman has a roast chicken recipe that says: put the chicken in the oven; go have sex; When you’re done, so is the chicken. I once mentioned this during a panel discussion… Critic Daniel Mendelsohn commented dryly, ‘Every time I try that, my chicken burns to a crisp.’”

Just like a good meal, some delicacies will stay with you forever.

@ajesh34