The books have been piling up here on the oak dropleaf table that currently serves as my desk. There are cookbooks, specialty food books, travel food books, nutrition/diet books and more. The ones that typically get a serious thumb-through from the My Table editors are books that have a local Houston or Texas angle. And that’s what I want to tell you about today.
Restaurant Inc. (Savory Books, $17.95) is by local restaurant owner Gerry Sarmiento, who has Mezzanotte and Piqueo restaurants in Cypress. It’s the true-life account of how Sarmiento got into the restaurant business, as well as a cautionary tale for wannabe restaurateurs. (Among the chapter titles are “My Partner is a Crook!” and “I Hired a Thief!”) Restaurant Inc. is funny and enlightening and a quick read at just 150 pages. If you are thinking about starting a restaurant, read this first. It might just scare you straight.
Appetites (Bright Sky Press, $24.95) from Marie LeNôtre is a memoir of her passage from young Greek single mom working in Paris to co-director of an internationally known cooking school in Houston, Culinary Institute LeNôtre. She tells it in a very personal way, and there are lots of meditations, photos, even poems. It’s like looking through the family’s scrapbook; proceeds from the sale of this book go to the Gaston LeNôtre Scholarship Foundation. By the way, check out the Good France event on Thursday evening (March 19) at the culinary institute. There will be a dinner (part of a world-wide celebration of French cuisine), and LeNôtre will talk about and sign her book.
Texas Hill Country Wineries (Arcadia Publishing, $22.99) by Russell D. Kane is a picture book, stuffed with snapshots of the wineries and people who populate the Texas Hill Country west of Austin. If you’ve traveled much in that part of the state, it will bring back many friendly memories; if you’re new to Texas wine travel, it will give you some ideas about where to start. Kane is also the author of The Wineslinger Chronicles: Texas on the Vine.
1,000 Foods to Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover’s Life List (Workman Publishing, $24.95) by Mimi Sheraton is not local to Houston – the one-time New York Times restaurant critic covers the world with this 990-page tome – but she does include several Houston restaurants in her gastronomic guide. Among those we found mentioned are Charivari (under “Schnitzel, Wiener, et al” on page 327), Kenny & Ziggy’s (under “Gehakte Leber (Chopped Chicken Livers)” on page 437), Kiran’s (under “Kulfi” on page 877) and Picos (under “Enchiladas” on page 648). A collection of dishes, traditions, restaurants, recipes, ingredients and mail-order sources, 1,000 Foods is over-stuffed with painstakingly researched information. It will keep you engaged for years.
Finally, if you haven’t see it already, check out Deli Man, a film documentary currently playing at the River Oaks Theatre that stars Kenny & Ziggy’s charismatic Ziggy Gruber. It’s through his personal story that the larger story of delis in America is told.
