My Place At The Table

In this debut memoir, a James Beard Award-winning writer, whose childhood idea of fine dining was Howard Johnson's, tells how he became one of Paris's most influential food critics Until Alec Lobrano landed a job in the glamorous Paris office of Women's Wear Daily, his main experience of French cuisine was the occasional supermarket éclair. An interview with the owner of a renowned cheese shop for his first article nearly proves a disaster because he speaks no French. As he goes on to cover celebrities and couturiers and improves his mastery of the language, he gradually learns what it means to be truly French. He attends a cocktail party with Yves St. Laurent and has dinner with Giorgio Armani. Over a superb lunch, it's his landlady who ultimately provides him with a lasting touchstone for how to judge food: "you must understand the intentions of the cook." At the city's brasseries and bistros, he discovers real French cooking. Through a series of vivid encounters with culinary figures from Paul Bocuse to Julia Child to Ruth Reichl, Lobrano hones his palate and finds his voice. Soon the timid boy from Connecticut is at the epicenter of the Parisian dining revolution and the restaurant critic of one of the largest newspapers in the France. A mouthwatering testament to the healing power of food, My Place at the Table is a moving coming-of-age story of how a gay man emerges from a wounding childhood, discovers himself, and finds love. Published here for the first time is Lobrano's "little black book," an insider's guide to his thirty all-time-favorite Paris restaurants.

Sara, a Pakistani American girl, and Elizabeth, a white Jewish girl, bond in a cooking class in this story about sixth grade, food, friendship, family and what it means to belong.

A culinary tour of some of the most alluring inns, food producers, restaurants, and winemakers of France, with more than seventy-five recipes updating classic regional dishes. Every food lover's ultimate dream is to tour the countryside of France, stopping off at luxurious inns with world-class restaurants and sampling fresh produce from local markets. Imagine having as your guide a savvy bon vivant, someone who lives for the pleasures of the table and knows just where to ferret out all the delicacies in each town. This book delivers just that. Each chapter covers a different region, from Normandy to Provence, and includes recommendations for a handful of the area's most excellent, off-the-beaten-path restaurants, along with recipes. Uniting all of the places in the book is an embrace of the farm-to-table ethos that has swept France's new generation of chefs and fueled such movements as Le Fooding. The more than seventy-five recipes sprinkled throughout exemplify contemporary riffs on quintessential regional specialties. For instance, from Normandy, there is Curried Pork in Cider Sauce; from Provence, Tartare of Salt Cod with Sesame-Chickpea Puree; from the Rhone, Pink Praline Tart. Hungry for France will inspire you to transform your cooking at home as well as to plan the trip of a lifetime.

In a culture built on consumption--especially of food--it is easy to forget the poor that Jesus cared so much about. Following the pattern of his successful Advent Conspiracy, Chris Seay invites readers on a journey of self-examination, discipline, and renewed focus on Jesus that will change their lives forever. He challenges readers to eat like the poor for forty days in solidarity with a much-neglected group of people, and to donate the money they save on groceries to a charity or project that serves the poor in concrete ways. But he doesn't expect them to go it alone. A Place at the Table includes a short chapter for each of those forty days with Scripture, reflections, prayers, encouragement, and tips for engaging the whole family in the process. The six-session DVD, shot in such locations as the Holy Land, Haiti, and Ecuador, will help small groups and entire churches go on a passionate journey of radical faith, personal action, solidarity with the poor, and extravagant grace.

The lives of an ostracized gay Southern boy, a wealthy Connecticut woman, and an African-American chef converge in a chic Manhattan cafâe, in a tale ranging from 1920s North Carolina to the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and the present day.

Bruce Bawer exposes the heated controversy over gay rights and presents a passionate plea for the recognition of common values, "a place at the table" for everyone.

“Makes you want to spend a week—immediately—in New Orleans.” —Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, Wall Street Journal A cocktail is more than a segue to dinner when it’s a Sazerac, an anise-laced drink of rye whiskey and bitters indigenous to New Orleans. For Wisconsin native Sara Roahen, a Sazerac is also a fine accompaniment to raw oysters, a looking glass into the cocktail culture of her own family—and one more way to gain a foothold in her beloved adopted city. Roahen’s stories of personal discovery introduce readers to New Orleans’ well-known signatures—gumbo, po-boys, red beans and rice—and its lesser-known gems: the pho of its Vietnamese immigrants, the braciolone of its Sicilians, and the ya-ka-mein of its street culture. By eating and cooking her way through a place as unique and unexpected as its infamous turducken, Roahen finds a home. And then Katrina. With humor, poignancy, and hope, she conjures up a city that reveled in its food traditions before the storm—and in many ways has been saved by them since.

"Raised in the Catholic Church, William Elliott had his faith shattered at the age of twelve when both his parents died. Many years later, he embarked on a journey to find answers to the questions that continued to haunt him: What is the purpose of life? Does God exist? What happens after death?" "A Place at the Table is an account of Elliott's latest pilgrimage, and like its predecessor, it is a magical blend of humor and idealism. Triggered by the memory of praying for his dying mother beneath an ornately framed painting of The Last Supper in their living room, Elliott set out to discover the role Jesus plays in people's lives. Over the course of several years, he interviewed such spiritual teachers and icons as Deepak Chopra, Neale Donald Walsch, Marianne Williamson, and Billy Graham. He went to Jerusalem to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, and even conceived of a bold (if ultimately unsuccessful) plan to meet with Pope John Paul II in Rome. Each encounter illuminates another facet of Jesus' teachings, but it is Elliott's wry and sincere commentary on his own spiritual journey that reveals the most insight."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved