Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

If you give me more details of the recipe I may be able to find this in one of her cookbooks. I have several of them, including Lidia's Italy.

Cooking makes me happy, but if I'd worried or distracted it's best if I'm not trying to follow a new recipe.

My mother used to like chopping things when she was mad, and she liked chopping things for soups. I may never forget the day I came home from school and there were three different pots of soup on the stove, and she was working on the fourth.

Moods tend to affect my patience. So if the pizza dough I'm rolling out keeps shrinking on itself, for example, my mood will get worse and worse and I'll become less and less patient. I've learned when that happens I have to put down what I'm doing and/or hand the task to someone else. On the other hand, making bread has always done wonders for my mood.

my mood definitely affects my cooking.
when i get pissed i make bread.
nothing like pounding the crap out of some dough to release some anger.
also, eating chips and salsa seems to help my anger-something about the crunching, i guess. it's better than just grinding my teeth, though.

You guys all rule. I'd completely forgotten about "Like Water for Chocolate," which is a fantastic book - good call with that, @pooch.

And, @dhorst, a weekend of pizza should cheer anyone up - but I think I might take @redfish's advice tonight :)

Hope not too late - but try Oysy for Sushi - on Grand & State.
Riva or its cafe on Navy Pier for seafood / burgers, etc.
Hop a cab to Greek town - (only a few minutes - ~$7-10) - Greek Islands or Santorini are staples.
Hub 51 is relatively new and close by on Hubbard - casual but good all around fare, your 17 year old will like it.
If time, do the original Billy Goat on lower wacker @ Michigan. Cheeseburgers.

I went a bit nuts a few years back and read 25 of the series "The Cat Who"
by Lilian Jackson Braun and they were always going to one of the restaurants in town and eating wonderful stuff since the main human character didn't cook at all. There is a cookbook, which I have. If you like cats and food (and I do), these are really cute fluff mystery books.

@lemons~the original copyright was 1976 for the book. The movie came out in 1978. There was a reprinting of the book with photos from the movie in the '80s. Robert Morley was terrific in it, and from what I understand, they tweaked it just for him. Great fun.
Oh, and from what I understand, Warner Bros. is doing a remake of the movie set in Las Vegas rather than Europe and Oliver Platt is playing the role of the editor/critic. It's supposed to be done by the guy who does the Family Guy and Futurama so it ought to be loads of fun.

I'm thinking the movie came first and then the book. I loved the movie - the naked nethers of Phillipe Noiret are a particularly appetizing sight - and bought the sound track as music to cook by. Thanks for the link. The role of the editor, by the way, was written specifically for Robert Morley.

Someone Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe by Nan and Ian Lyons was a fun read back in the day. They made it into a movie with Jaqueline Bisset and George Segal.

There's a wonderful little book I read once...I have it here somewhere....It was about a woman who baked cakes. Well. For her family and herself...I don't remember any recipes specifically in it, but it was a fictional story...and really enjoyable. Before I became a 'foodie' I just...loved how she described the cakes and the ritual surrounding them.

Ah. Here it is. 'Eat Cake' by Jeanne Ray.

I also 2nd Bethbites' reccomendation of Anthony Cappella's "The Food of Love."

If you want food writing that's not novels, Calvin Trillin is mouth-wateringly good. Even when he's writing about food I ordinarily don't like I want to run right out and find it.