Life Is Meals: A Food Lover's Book of Days

From the PEN/Faulkner Award€“winning author James Salter and his wife, Kay€"amateur chefs and terrific hosts€"here is a charming, beautifully illustrated food lover€s companion that, with an entry for each day of the year, takes us from a Twelfth Night cake in January to a champagne dinner on New Year€s Eve. Life Is Meals is rich with culinary wisdom, history, recipes, literary pleasures, and the authors€ own stories of their triumphs€"and catastrophes€"in the kitchen.
For instance:
The menu on the Titanic on the fatal night
Reflections on dining from Queen Victoria, JFK, Winnie the Pooh, Garrison Keillor, and many others
The seductiveness of a velvety Brie or the perfect martini
How to decide whom to invite to a dinner party€"and whom not to
John Irving€s family recipe for meatballs; Balzac€s love of coffee
The greatest dinner ever given at the White House
Where in Paris Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter had French onion soup at 4:00 a.m.

Sophisticated as well as practical, opinionated, and indispensable, Life Is Meals is a tribute to the glory of food and drink, and the joy of sharing them with others. €œThe meal is the emblem of civilization,€ the Salters observe. €œWhat would one know of life as it should be lived, or nights as they should be spent, apart from meals?€