Adam Gopnik’s essay on the nature of cookbooks caught my eye in this week’s New Yorker. He covers a range of topics, but the division between cookbooks which are essentially grammatical (Ratio, How to Cook Everything) and cookbooks which are encyclopedic (Mastering the Art of French Cooking) is one that is dear to my heart. What cookbooks are for, and how we use them, or don’t use them — whether we cook from them or simply read them for pleasure is one of the subjects around which I keep circling. Here’s a quote:

“However we take cookbooks— grammatically or encyclopedically, as storehouses of craft or illusions of knowledge—one can’t read them in bed for many years without feeling that there is a conspiracy between readers and writers to obscure the ultimate point. A kind of primal scene of eating hovers over every cookbook, just as a primal scene of sex lurks behind every love story. In cooking, the primal scene, or substance, is salt, sugar, and fat held in maximum solution with starch; add protein as necessary, and finish with caffeine (coffee or chocolate) as desired. That’s what, suitably disguised in some decent dimension of dressup, we always end up making. We make béarnaise sauce by whisking a stick of melted butter into a couple of eggs, and, now that we no longer make béarnaise sauce, we make salsa verde by beating a cup of olive oil into a fistful of anchovies. The herbs change; the hope does not.”

Cormac McCarthy, who is famously reticent was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal last week. It’s a terrific interview. Here’s one of my favorite parts:

“WSJ: What does your brother Dennis do? Is he a scientist?

CM: He is. He has a doctorate in biology and he’s also a lawyer and a thoughtful guy and a good friend.

WSJ: Brotherly conversation just turns to the apocalypse?

CM: More often than we can justify.”

I don’t know what happened to blogging this week. But then again, I don’t know how it got to be Wednesday afternoon already.

In lieu of new blogging, here’s my latest CookbookSlut review over at Bookslut.

The Patience of the Spider

I’ve come late to mysteries, but this is the summer I seem to have discovered them, in particular, mysteries in translation. It’s partially because Chuck buys a lot of books at yard sales and discovered these two guys — one of the things we have in common is houses full of books. We’re both also really happy not to turn the TV on in the evenings, and to read books. It’s been lovely, especially since I feel like I’m still sort of in recovery, and that I’m rebuilding my stores of energy for whatever is going to come next.

So of the new authors I’ve found, I’m really kind of addicted to these Camilleri mysteries. They’re both really well written, and really well translated — witty and sometimes dark, with great food, and a deeply flawed main character. Plus they’re short. I read fast, and I can get usually get through one in an evening, or perhaps two — which is sort of too bad, since I like them, and I’m running through them more quickly than I’d like to be. I bought a bunch of them for Chuck for his birthday (a sort of selfish present since I read most of them while he was finishing up this last construction job). I just found a new one at the library this afternoon, which made me enormously happy.

Voices: A Reykjavik Thriller

I’ve also been reading this Icelandic writer, who I think of as “the Icelandic guy who’s name starts with I” — again, a main character with big flaws, but a good heart, surrounded by an interesting cast of secondary characters. I think part of what I like is the travelogue aspect as well — did you know that in Iceland, smoked lamb’s tongue is a holiday delicacy? I know! Neither did I, but I’m glad that I do now. The Camilleri has some of the same appeal — there’s a lot of good food, and Sicilian atmosphere — which might seem outwardly more appealing than Iceland, but actually, I find both equally appealing. So far I’ve read three of these, and just got a copy of Jar City, which is on the top of the stack.

So readers, what’s your guilty reading pleasure? What do you read when you need a good read?