false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175700210m/546802.jpg 546802 2 She may be a cookbook author, but Betty Fussell's extra-tart autobiography is no ordinary gastronomic memoir. For starters, her attitude toward cooking ("the one activity, besides tennis, in which housewives were encouraged to excel") is decidedly ambivalent. A chapter entitled "Attack by Whisk and Cuisinart" paints a devastating portrait of entertaining as a competitive sport, in which women who spend weeks planning and executing elaborate dinner parties must "pretend there'd been no labor, no expense, no fatigue, no sweat ... the aim was to look like a hot tomato while remaining cucumber-cool." For another thing, anyone with Fussell's gift for apt metaphor should enjoy chapters like "To Arms with Squeezer and Slicer," or "Invasion of the Waring Blenders," whose titles wittily encapsulate their content and would be wasted on mere recipes or recollections of Chefs I Have Known. Instead, she limns the experience of a generation of women who flung themselves into domesticity after World War II with mixed results, which in the author's case included an ultimately failed marriage to cultural historian Paul Fussell (who is not treated gently here). Smart, funny, even appetizing at times, her book takes one woman's story as a case study of the role food plays in our lives and in our culture. <I>--Wendy Smith</I> 1646503 1999 My Kitchen Wars total:37|5:1|4:0|3:1|2:0|1:0| 37 119 62 12 2 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Mar 30 18:06:59 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 30 18:11:13 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Mar 02 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Mar 08 15:34:52 -0700 2009 Sun Mar 08 15:41:52 -0700 2009 more...]]> 1 0 false false Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Feb 04 06:09:25 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 04 06:14:30 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Nov 01 00:00:00 -0800 2000 Thu Aug 13 22:25:08 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 13 22:26:16 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Wed Feb 25 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 25 06:01:32 -0800 2009 Thu Mar 05 16:16:32 -0800 2009 2 0 false false Sun Oct 12 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 30 10:02:57 -0700 2008 Sun Oct 12 19:54:46 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Aug 12 13:17:44 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 05 08:26:40 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat May 23 07:35:52 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 05 13:01:23 -0700 2009 4 1 false false Sun Feb 15 17:19:06 -0800 2009 Mon Mar 30 18:00:21 -0700 2009 4 1 false false Wed Jul 09 09:49:04 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 09 09:49:04 -0700 2008 1 0 false false Tue Mar 11 23:30:12 -0700 2008 Tue Mar 11 23:31:04 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Sun May 03 10:53:33 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 18 18:46:50 -0700 2009 ]]> 0 0 false false Tue Nov 24 09:43:15 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 24 09:43:40 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Wed Nov 18 09:44:40 -0800 2009 Wed Nov 11 09:47:10 -0800 2009 Wed Nov 18 09:44:40 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Tue Nov 10 10:03:39 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 10 10:03:39 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Mon Nov 09 09:58:24 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 09 09:58:24 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Thu Oct 29 07:35:52 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 29 07:35:52 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Sep 19 18:34:21 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 19 18:42:04 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Thu Sep 17 09:59:06 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 17 09:59:11 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Aug 29 05:28:14 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 29 05:28:21 -0700 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=546802