Eating Together: Recipes and Recollections

Rating:
Summary: Lilly, let's eat ...
Review: This is an enjoyable book for a fans of Hellman's who also like to cook. She collaborated on it with her acolyte Peter Feibleman shortly before her death in the mid-eighties, and the reminisences and food insights that frame the recipes in her half of the book (it's split into "His Way" and "Her Way") have the fuzzy yet engaging and opinionated quality that characterizes her memoirs. I've cooked out of this book many times. One chocolate cake recipe that involves bourbon and almonds is a particular favorite of ours. Reading EATING TOGETHER, you can almost hear Hellman barking at you from beyond the grave for daring to cut into a baked Idaho potato with a knife, or failing to save the duck fat, or slicing the Virginia ham too thickly. But great cooks do tend to feel strongly about the preparation and serving of good food. If Hellman fabricated in her memoirs, it can at least be said of her that she knew her way around in the kitchen, and turned out two or three classics of the American theatre.