Love and Kisses and a Halo of Truffles

Résumé du livre

"James Beard was elevating the American palate from tuna casserole to mussels Lucullus when the Waring blender was a novelty and the croissant something of a mystery. Beard -- whom the 'New York Times' termed 'a titan of the table art' -- was America's most celebrated chef for more than five decades. His cookbooks are gastronomic classics. This collection of three hundred letters, rescued from oblivion after Beard's death, records a twelve-year, bicoastal epistolary love affair between two evangelical food giants. Beard and Helen Evans Brown, his revered friend and culinary authority on the West Coast, swap recipes ranging from meatballs to foie gas; evaluate cocktail party cuisine and cooking classes; relate money troubles, aches, and pains; plan future collaborations; and exchange traveling tales. These letters, while offering a unique window into the precholesterol awareness era -- when enjoying a fine meal was a goal in itself -- resonate with Beard's expansive personality: witty, caustic, insightful, obsessive. They capture his philosophy of eating -- soaked with butter and cream -- and the art of cooking at its pinnacle."--