Michael Ruhlman spotlights four food lit keepers on shelves right now. Here are our notes on his notes. The Pedant in the Kitchen (Julian Barnes): Sometimes whiney kitchen passages, but Barnes is on fire when writing about other writers writing about food. Service Included (Phoebe Damrosch): A Per Se waitress who's not as snarky as you'd think, especially for someone who didn't tell the staff she was scribing notes behind their backs. Too much of the story, though, revolves around her saucy relationship with Andre, a Per Se sommelier. The two eventually move in together. (Sau-cy!) An Edge in the Kitchen: How to Buy Them, Keep Them Razor Sharp and Use Them Like a Pro (Chad Ward): It's an...
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Besides picking up the last of the season's tomatoes and some fresh-picked apples at your local farmers' market, you have something else to do this weekend: Try to win one of ten copies of Phoebe Damrosch's entertaining, wryly revealing memoir, Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter. It's a breezy read anchored by Damrosch's acute observations, semiserious tips on how to get the most out of a four-star restaurant experience (she was a waiter at Thomas Kelle's Per Se in New York), and her self-deprecating wit. What's the book about? I'll let Damrosch tell you. This is from the introduction: After I left Per Se, a former colleague passed along a story that the chef told the staff. If...
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