645787 Wed Aug 19 07:30:18 -0700 2009 1 33 Food Media and News 0 4958691 The sublime: Trail of Crumbs by Kim Sunée - a very well written and involving memoir of her childhood and young adulthood, during which she was the companion of the founder of l'Occitane en Provence. She describes her rather cursed/charmed lfe (abandoned as a child in Korea, adopted by a not terribly warm family, and subsumed into Olivier Baussan's life as a young woman) in an unselfpitying way. The recipes are very good as well. (PS don't bother looking up a picture of M. Baussan, he's nothing much to look at. How a country could produce so many gorgeous women and so few really handsome men is a mystery to me.) The (very) realistic: Jason Sheehan's Cooking Dirty - very fun, excellent depiction of life in restaurant kitchens (I did my time in a few too, know what he's talking about), and a very funny and wonderfully profane memoir of growing up in Rochester among other things. Am partway through and loving it. Wed Aug 19 07:30:18 -0700 2009 13709 buttertart 1 4971587 Thanks for the tips, esp the Sheehan book which sadly is not in our library system. Will have to check online... Sun Aug 23 21:52:01 -0700 2009 4958691 169233 grayelf