in praise of Mark Bittman
Posted by Sarah
I’m ashamed to admit that for years food writer extraordinaire Mark Bittman barely registered on my radar. This was primarily due to the fact that his cookbooks (which are wonderful by the way) have bright yellow covers. Seeing as how I’m a librarian and all I’m sure I ought to follow the old adage of “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” but I tend to buy book I think are pretty and I really don’t care for bright yellow and as a result of this (shallow) prejudice I ignored his book. I have seen the error of my ways however and am now proud to call myself a Mark Bittman fan. His weekly New York Times Column “The Minimalist” is fabulous and frequently the best thing I read all week. Even better: the online version links to video of the man himself cooking some of the food he writes about. They’re beautiful and informal and I aspire to the sort of clean simplicity he demonstrates. Plus the food looks delicious.
November 15th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
Ok so have you bought a copy of How to Cook Everything? I was tempted to buy it, but the color and title also turned me off.
November 16th, 2007 at 10:50 am
As a matter of fact I have not. Years of working in bookstores and buying things at a great discount have ruined me and I pretty much refuse to pay full price for books now. I have, however, checked it out from the library in the past (shout out to the library!) and I keep an eye out for it at used bookstores though I’ve yet to find it. It’s probably a testament to its greatness that a book that sells that well new doesn’t show up very often in used bookstores.