Life Is Meals_ A Food Lover's Book of Days - James Salter [0]
COPYRIGHT © 2006 BY JAMES AND KAY SALTER
ILLUSTRATIONS COPYRIGHT © 2006 BY FABRICE MOIREAU.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE, INC., NEW YORK, IN ASSOCIATION WITH CALLAWAY ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT, AND IN CANADA BY RANDOM HOUSE OF CANADA LIMITED, TORONTO.
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GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT IS MADE TO THE FOLLOWING FOR PERMISSION TO REPRINT PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED MATERIAL:
Excerpt from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (NY 1999).
Reprinted by permission of Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division.
“Soupe de Nevers”—Recipe adapted from Cuisine of the Rose by Mireille Johnston.
Copyright © 1982 by Mireille Johnston. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Polpettone alla Toscana”—Recipe adapted from The Classic Italian Cook Book:
The Art of Italian Cooking and the Italian Art of Eating by Marcella Hazan.
Copyright © 1973 by Marcella Hazan. First Alfred A. Knopf Edition, February 1976.
Reprinted by permission of the author. All rights reserved.
Excerpt from A Childs Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas. Copyright © 1954 by New Directions Publishing Corp. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
“Gratin Dauphinois Madame Cartet”—Recipe from Bistro Cooking by Patricia Wells.
Copyright © 1989 by Patricia Wells. Reprinted by permission of Workman Publishing Co., Inc., New York. All rights reserved.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
SALTER, JAMES
LIFE IS MEALS: A FOOD LOVER’S BOOK OF DAYS / JAMES AND KAY SALTER;
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY FABRICE MOIREAU — 1ST ED.
P. CM.
eISBN: 978-0-307-49644-7
1. GASTRONOMY 2. FOOD 3. DINNERS AND DINING.
I. SALTER, KAY II. TITLE.
TX631.S225 2006 6411013—dc22
v3.1
ALSO BY JAMES SALTER
FICTION
Last Night
Dusk and Other Stories
Solo Faces
Light Years
A Sport and a Pastime
Cassada (previously published as The Arm of Flesh)
The Hunters
NONFICTION
There and Then
Gods of Tin
Burning the Days
I intend that my last work shall be a cookbook composed of memories and desires …
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, 1869
Contents
Introduction
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Index
OUR HOUSE IN ASPEN, COLORADO, DATED BACK TO THE MINING days, and the kitchen was small—about ten feet by twelve—with not much counter space and a worn floor, but it was honest and comfortable to be in. The dishes were kept in a wooden display case, and the pantry was a shallow closet with no door.
It was in this kitchen that we began cooking together when we moved into the house in about 1976. Neither of us had had much cooking experience, and there was no real decision to do it, it just happened naturally. We cooked side by side or back to back if necessary, following recipes, James Beard’s or Mireille Johnston’s, which were among our early favorites.
The dining room was equally small and almost a part of the kitchen. It had a fireplace and a large framed mirror on one wall. Another wall was three shaky windows looking out onto the street and often on snow pouring down or, in the summer, light that lasted until ten in the evening. The early dinner parties were for friends or people who had come to town. Aspen was easygoing in those days. The streets had only been paved a few years before. Dogs were full-fledged citizens of the town.
When something we cooked turned out particularly well, we cooked it over and over, of course, and partly as a consequence began, in an old brown notebook, to keep a record of what we had served people so as not to give them the same thing, at least not too often. At the same time we began a handwritten book of recipes or versions of them that were worth keeping, often with when theyd first been served, and to whom.
Gradually, over the years,