The September 5th issue of The New Yorker is an absolute pleasure to read. Usually, I get through the magazine pretty quickly - I have no problem easily skipping over articles that don't captivate me within the first page, and the articles that do catch my attention, well, I read through those quickly, too. Just because I'm enjoying them so much.
But this week's issue really had me hooked. From a beautifully written article on the ancient art of making tofu to a profile of Esca's David Pasternack, I was totally enthralled. Calvin Trillin was as understatedly hysterical as always, with his search for the perfect Ecuadorian fish soup, fanesca. If you have not yet read his book, The Tummy Trilogy, take my advice and get it - from a store, from the library, wherever. I also loved reading Jane Kramer's piece on our obsession (and her own) with cookbooks. My cookbook collection is nearing 80 (if it hasn't already surpassed that), so it makes me feel better to know there are other similarly obsessed people out there. She wrote the article while summering in a house in Umbria - and found that cooking from Asian cookbooks in Italy proved pretty much impossible, surprise surprise (although why one would want to is another question entirely).
If the issue is still on newsstands today, grab it! I throw old issues out with impunity, but this one I'll be holding on to.
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