Reading Group Center




“How Have I Not Read This?” August Book Club Pick

How Have I Not Read This? Home Cooking

Join Ruth Reichl and Helen Rosner for a live, virtual discussion of Laurie Colwin’s immortal, beloved book Home Cooking. Moderated by Eater.com’s Jaya Saxena.

The author of five novels (including Happy All The Time and Family Happiness) and three collections of short stories, Laurie Colwin’s most beloved, timeless book may be the memoir Home Cooking. Weaving together memories, recipes, and wild tales of years spent in the kitchen, Home Cooking is Laurie Colwin’s manifesto on the joys of sharing food and entertaining. From the humble hotplate of her one-room apartment to the crowded kitchens of bustling parties, Colwin regales us with tales of meals gone both magnificently well and disastrously wrong. Hilarious, personal, and full of Colwin’s hard-won expertise, Home Cooking speaks to the heart of any amateur cook, professional chef, or food lover.

Home Cooking is an ideal late summer read, and we hope you will join us in reading along this month, and then for a Zoom discussion with Ruth Reichl, Helen Rosner, and Jaya Saxena on September 10.

This is a selection of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group’s How Have I Not Read This? book club. Read along with us at #HowHaveINotReadThis

Find out more about the book, read an excerpt, and browse the table of contents.


 
Event Details:
• THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10. Register here and add to your calendar.

• EVENT START: 7:00 p.m. EDT (or shortly after once all are checked in)

• Hosted in partnership with Milwaukee’s Boswell Book Company. Order your copy of Home Cooking here.

• NOTE: This is a virtual event that will be hosted on Zoom—you will need access to a computer or other device that is capable of accessing and sufficient Internet access. If you have not used Zoom before, you may consider referencing Getting Started with Zoom.

 
Featured Participants:
The recipient of six James Beard Awards, RUTH REICHL began writing about food in 1972, when she published Mmmmm: A Feastiary. She moved to Berkeley, California in 1973, and became co-owner and cook at The Swallow Restaurant. In 1978 she became restaurant critic for New West and California magazines, and went on to be the restaurant critic and food editor of the Los Angeles Times. From 1993-1999 she served as restaurant critic for The New York Times. In 1999 she moved to Gourmet Magazine, where she was Editor in Chief for ten years. She has authored five memoirs: Tender at the Bone, Comfort Me with Apples, Garlic and Sapphires, For You, Mom, Finally and Save Me the Plums. Her novel, Delicious!, was published in 2014, and her cookbook, My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes that Saved My Life, in 2015. She edited The Best American Food Writing 2018 and The Modern Library Food Series, which currently includes ten books. She was Executive Producer and host of the public television series Adventures with Ruth and a judge on Top Chef Masters.

HELEN ROSNER writes about food (mostly) for The New Yorker. She has worked at Saveur and New York magazine, launched the seminal food site Eat Me Daily, and was for a time a book editor. In 2016 she won the James Beard Award for her ode to chicken tenders, published in Guernica. She has also written the introductions for the books Anthony Bourdain: The Last Interview and Julie Child: The Last Interview. Before joining The New Yorker, she was the executive editor of Eater, where she founded the publication’s James Beard- and National Magazine Award-winning features department.

JAYA SAXENA is currently a Staff Writer at Eater.com and has written for GQ, Elle, TASTE, Catapult, and more.