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Reading Rescue, August 2006: Memoirs
By Anne Allen and Mary Anne Fulmer
 Memoirs
are viewed with some suspicion lately and perhaps rightly so. However,
this month the Reading Rescuers (no boring books here!) want to point
you toward some memoirs that will amuse, engage, and inform you. We can
promise you that these authors won't exaggerate the time they spent in
prison.
Currently the editor of "Gourmet" magazine, Ruth Reichl
has entertained us with two volumes of her memoirs, Tender at the
Bone and Comfort Me with Apples (92 Reichl). The first book
is subtitled "Growing Up at the Table," and Reichl relates learning to
cook as a very young girl in her grandmother's house. Her father, a book
designer, and mother, brilliant but distracted, send her first to Canada
to be schooled and off to France to work in a summer camp. Both
experiences add to her cooking skills and her worldliness. After college
and jobs working in restaurants, Reichl makes the leap to free-lance
restaurant critic in San Francisco, an experience she details in her
second book. It's fun to read her stories of having her credit card
rejected after a working meal, hunting for people to eat with her, and
scrounging acceptable clothing to get into the restaurants she is being
paid to review. There is heartache, as well, but always good food to
make life better.
Gael Greene has also written a memoir with recipes in
Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess (92 Greene).
Greene was a free-lance journalist, working mostly for "Cosmopolitan" in
the late 1960's, when her phone rang one day and the publisher of "New
York" magazine was on the line, asking her to become his restaurant
reviewer. She tells of growing up in the Midwest, making the move to New
York, and her experiences "interviewing" stars like Burt Reynolds and
Clint Eastwood on assignment for "Cosmo". The restaurant world also
offered her plenty of scope for sybaritic experiences, including a
romance with a would-be actor that will leave you shaking your head.
Greene's passion for food, travel, and love is infectious, if not always
wise, and a fun read.
A Girl Named Zippy (92 Kimmel) is Haven Kimmel's
memoir of growing up in Mooreland, Indiana. Deceptively simple in style,
Kimmel selects a series of anecdotes to illustrate growing up with two
much older siblings, a gambler-father, and a mother who rarely left her
sofa and her books. A child of few words (her first, when she was nearly
three, were "I'll make you a deal"), she was nicknamed Zippy because she
was never still. Kimmel tells her stories with the viewpoint and
acceptance of a child: the whole world is strange and mysterious, and
this is just how life is. The snapshots scattered through the book put
faces to the characters in Zippy's life and add to the enjoyment.
Happily, Kimmel has written a second book of memoirs, She Got Up Off
the Couch, as well-written and engaging as the first. We can only
hope her stories will continue.
In 1957, Cumberland Packing introduced an artificial
sweetener named Sweet'N Low and the world was forever changed for
diabetics and dieters. Sweet and Low by Rich Cohen (920 Cohen) is
the story of Ben and Betty Eisenstadt, their business and their family.
Cohen is their grandson, from the disinherited branch of the family, and
he traces their history from Brooklyn diners to a factory packing
teabags to the meteoric growth fuelled by Sweet'N Low and then the
company's infiltration by New York wiseguys. Along the way, he details
the history of sugar and how the current fashion in body shape opened
the door to artificial and alternative sweeteners.
Marley and Me by John Grogan (636.752Gro) has
been on the best seller list for several months now, but we want to
encourage you to pick it up if you haven't read it yet. It is the story
of a young couple who gets a dog so they can practice their parenting
skills before children come along. Marley may be the pet from hell, but
Grogan's tales will make you laugh and cry, and bring back fond memories
of any pet you have had.
Another Summer Reading Program has come to an end. We'd
like to thank the participants, all 1,258 of them. Also, the Friends of
the Library have a used book sale planned for November. Please check the
library website for details (www.pennlib.org)
and, as always, send questions and comments to
mfulmer@pennlib.org.
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