Friday, April 18, 2014
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
His life in restaurants
"I grew up in restaurants. I don't mean that my parents owned or ran them - my father was a Hollywood screenwriter, my mother a onetime ingenue turned housewife and society dame - but they practically lived in restaurants themselves, and when they went out to eat, they often took me with them.
"Some of my earliest memories are of perching on a booster seat in a red or green leather booth at a table covered in thick white napery and crowded with silverware and glasses, and being waited on and fed and plied with Shirley Temples and told to sit up straight.
"I can still summon up a sensory impression of those evenings, romanticized, of course, and with the particulars of each occasion blurred hopelessly together, but vivid nonetheless: the ceaseless motion all around me, a choreography of waiters and busboys, arriving and departing guests; the reassuring clamor that suggested room-wide concord and contentment; the aromas intertwining in the air - cigarette smoke, Sterno, sizzling meat, coffee, the iodine-scented whisky in my father's glass, the floral sweetness of my mother's best perfume.
"It all washed over me, and never really went away."
Colman Andrews in "My Usual Table: A Life in Restaurants"
"Some of my earliest memories are of perching on a booster seat in a red or green leather booth at a table covered in thick white napery and crowded with silverware and glasses, and being waited on and fed and plied with Shirley Temples and told to sit up straight.
"I can still summon up a sensory impression of those evenings, romanticized, of course, and with the particulars of each occasion blurred hopelessly together, but vivid nonetheless: the ceaseless motion all around me, a choreography of waiters and busboys, arriving and departing guests; the reassuring clamor that suggested room-wide concord and contentment; the aromas intertwining in the air - cigarette smoke, Sterno, sizzling meat, coffee, the iodine-scented whisky in my father's glass, the floral sweetness of my mother's best perfume.
"It all washed over me, and never really went away."
Colman Andrews in "My Usual Table: A Life in Restaurants"
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About Me
- Christina Eng
- is a writer and reviewer on the West Coast whose essays and articles have appeared in publications such as the Oakland Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, Budget Travel, Brown Alumni Magazine, Saveur, Relish, Gastronomica, Best Food Writing 2002, www.theatlantic.com, www.npr.org and www.culinate.com. She has a bachelor's in English from Brown and a master's in literary nonfiction from the University of Oregon. Send comments, questions and suggestions to: mschristinaeng@gmail.com.
Books I am Reading
- "James and the Giant Peach" by Roald Dahl
- "Manhood for Amateurs" by Michael Chabon
- "The Big Sur Bakery Cookbook" by Michelle and Philip Wojtowicz and Michael Gilson
- "Rustic Fruit Desserts" by Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson
- "Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger" by Nigel Slater
- "Jamie at Home: Cook Your Way to the Good Life" by Jamie Oliver
- "The Gastronomical Me" by M.F.K. Fisher
- "Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China" by Fuchsia Dunlop
- "My China: A Feast for All the Senses" by Kylie Kwong
- "Serve the People: A Stir-Fried Journey Through China" by Jen Lin-Liu
- "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance" by Barack Obama
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Films and TV Shows I am Watching
- "Jiro Dreams of Sushi"
- "Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death"
- "Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie"
- "Waitress" with Keri Russell
- "The Future of Food" by Deborah Koons Garcia
- "Food, Inc."
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