WHEN I’M NOT WRITING ABOUT
FOOD, I’M READING ABOUT IT.
YOU SHOULD BE RAVENOUS FOR
LUNCH BY THE TIME YOU’VE COME
TO THE END OF THIS SIDEBAR.
Jeff
Gordinier
Recommends
Four Books That
Make Him Hungry
Jeff
Gordinier
WRITER FOR EW
1994–2002
NOTABLE WORKS
X Saves the World,
Chef’s Table
LATEST PROJECT
Hungry, a chronicle
of years spent with
chef René Redzepi
EW ALL-STARS
High on the Hog
by Jessica B. Harris
One of our foremost
food scholars schools
us on how many of the
dishes and ingredients
we define as American
are by-products of
the African diaspora.
The Apprentice
by Jacques Pépin
As gentle and wise as
its author, this memoir
from the French-born
master chef and Julia
Child sidekick is like a
bouillabaisse you can’t
stop slurping.
NINETEEN YEARS AGO, ZADIE SMITH’S
electric debut, White Teeth, signaled the
arrival of a major literary star. Then, like
an NBA pro who decides he also wants to
play major-league baseball—and maybe
Quidditch, too—she spent the ensuing two
decades spreading her gifts across nearly
every medium: essays, criticism, stories, more novels.
It feels fitting, then, that her first short-story collec-
tion is as eclectic as it is; 19 short, sharp tales (roughly
half of them previously published in places like The New
Yorker and Paris Review) that range from intimate first-
person sketches to wildly speculative science fiction.
Inevitably, some are stronger than others: “Sentimental
Education,” in which a woman in midlife looks back at
“the familiar and delicious brown animal” of her sexually
voracious youth; “The Lazy River,” a cutting royal-we
tale of vacationers determined to enjoy the ersatz plea-
sures of an all-inclusive Spanish resort while the messy
world carries on outside. Pieces that garnered a lot of
attention when they first appeared elsewhere, including
the 9/11 fever dream “Escape From New York” and
“Miss Adele Amidst the Corsets,” about a fading cabaret
star, hold up gratifyingly well, though the experimental
efforts that work best tend to be the ones that wear their
humanity on their sleeve; the quietly devastating “Kelso
Deconstructed,” based on the real-life murder of an
Antiguan immigrant in late-1950s London, easily out-
shines dystopian riffs like “The Canker.” There’s some
cognitive whiplash, too, in toggling so quickly between
so many styles. But taken all together, the book does feel
like a kind of grand union: the lucky synthesis of every-
thing swirling inside Smith’s big, beautiful brain. A–
IN HER FIRST-EVER SHORT-STORY COLLECTION,
GRAND UNION, ZADIE SMITH DELIVERS SOME OF THE
BEST FICTION OF HER CAREER. BY LEAH GREENBLATT
A
Grand
Return
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY (ISSN 1049-0434) (OCTOBER 2019) (#1574/1575) IS PUBLISHED 12 TIMES A YEAR, WITH 10 DOUBLE ISSUES AND SINGLES IN APRIL AND JULY, BY ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY INC., A SUBSIDIARY OF MEREDITH CORPORATION, PRINCIPAL OFFICE: 225 LIBERTY ST., NEW YORK, NY 10281-1008. PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID AT NEW YORK, NY AND ADDITIONAL MAILING OFFICES. POSTMASTER: SEND ALL UAA TO CFS. (SEE DMM 507.1.5.2); NON-
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Shark’s Fin and
Sichuan Pepper
by Fuchsia Dunlop
After devouring Dun-
lop’s deep dive into the
techniques of Chinese
cuisine, you will never
look at a cleaver
the same way again.
Blood, Bones & Butter
by Gabrielle Hamilton
If there’s a gastronomic
equivalent to Patti
Smith’s Just Kids,
it’s this smoky, salty,
scuzzily romantic ode
to finding salvation
through cooking.
ILLUSTRATION BY CAMERON K. LEWIS
(OPPOSITE PAGE) BEOWULF SHEEHAN (THIS PAGE) JACKIE NICKERSON
