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Selected Shorts

Sunday, October 28, 2007
  • Steak at Peter Luger
    Peter Luger

    Food Fantasies

    “My toaster oven was put to far more interesting use. I began with toasted cheese, that staple of starving people who live in garrets.” —Laurie Colwin, “Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant.”
    A surreal recipe from provincial France, and a glimpse of the private pleasures of food writer Laurie Colwin.

Yum. And Yum again! Two terrific stories about that ever-popular subject, food, glorious food. The first is host Isaiah Sheffer’s reading of an outrageous story that describes perhaps the most elaborate recipe in the history of great culinary adventures, with a title that’s longer than some of the short stories we’ve presented on this series: “COUNTRY COOKING FROM CENTRAL FRANCE: ROAST BONED ROLLED STUFFED SHOULDER OF LAMB (FARCE DOUBLE).” American expatriate writer Harry Matthews celebrates experimental fiction and his adoptive country in this tour de force, which is introduced by food author and critic Ruth Reichl.

The late Laurie Colwin is a lot of people’s favorite food writer, and her sensual love of cooking and food as a form of love permeates much of her popular fiction as well. We get a glimpse of the source of that love in a charming memoir about her early days as an aspiring writer, filling her tiny Greenwich Village studio with as many friends, and as much food, as it could hold.

“ALONE IN THE KITCHEN WITH AN EGGPLANT” is read by the Broadway musical star, Kelli O’Hara, star of “Pajama Game” and “Light in the Piazza,” making her SELECTED SHORTS debut.

“Country Cooking from Central France,” by Harry Mathews, read by Isaiah Sheffer
“Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant,” by Laurie Colwin, read by Kelli O'Hara

For additional works featured on SELECTED SHORTS, please visit Symphony Space

Comments

  • [1] kate Allen from Kansas January 02, 2009 - 10:10PM

    Is the FOOD FANTASIES show from Oct 28, 2007 available for purchase or download?

    For information about our CD compilations, please see our website, www.selectedshorts.org.


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