Hungry Town

Huh? I can hear you say?

I just finished reading Tom Fitzmorris's Hungry Town: A Culinary History of New Orleans: The City Where Food Is Almost Everything. Now, I don't usually do book reviews here, but this one inspired me.

I met Tom at the Maple Street Bookshop when they held a book signing a few weeks ago. I will admit that it was the offer of free Sazaracs, that pulled me in.

Tom Fitzmorris has been a New Orleans food critic for a number of years, and for a variety of publications. He also has a very successful radio show. He gained national prominence with his web site which tracks the number of restaurants in the New Orleans area. Post-Katrina, it began serving as an index of the recovery of the city.

One of the statements that lives with me (and I had subconsciously found to be true), is that in New Orleans, the most common topic of conversation is food. In other cities it could be politics, or the weather, but here it is food and restaurants.

On August 26, 2005 there were 809 restaurants in the index. This includes small neighborhood "joints," but not fast food or take-out only locations. By April 17, 2007, there were exactly the same number of restaurants, and today it is almost 1,100. Not a bad place to live.

The books includes a great deal of history about various establishments, both current and closed. It also includes a few recipes, and tales about some of the famous chefs from New Orleans.

I highly recommend this book.

Early April Links

Just after I posted about the Julie/Julia project, East Baton Rouge Parish Library posted about Julia's kitchen! [Note, their posts are frequent but usually short, and great promotion for some aspect of public library service.]

I don't remember where I picked up this great post on managing your Gmail account. (Now I just need to do it!)

Stephen Abram has done a series of posts accumulating the various studies on the economic value that libraries bring to an economy. The public library list is here.

Then there is the EBSCO dust-up.

1. Meredith Farkas asked Has EBSCO become the new evil empire?
2. Sarah Houghton-Jan [well respected as The Librarian in Black] reflected Unethical Library Vendors: A Call to Arms for Libraries to Fight Back
3. Meredith further noted A lot of Davids make one heck of a Goliath

Eric Hellman (and you have to love the name of his blog: Go To Hellman) wrote an interesting non-librarian post about cataloging and the library role in helping to identify and organize information. It is well worth a read.

Barbara Fister wrote a long post about the relationship between publishers and librarians. (While I did link to it, let me admit I have not read it. I expect it to appear in an upcoming issue of Library Journal. I hope to be able to read it more reflectively there.

At PLA last week (or the week before?), a company announced DRM-free, downloadable music for libraries. I will say, about time!

Peter Bromberg wrote up Five Tips for Successful Webinars which I picked up from iLibrarian.

Personal note: I will be off on vacation next week...a brief trip, out of the country, and will be completely "un-plugged." I know that part of that is good. I will admit that I am not looking forward to the electronic piles which await my return. Oh, well.

Cooking/Julie & Julia

Those who read the blog directly will notice that Julie and Julia has moved from "current" to "read."

One of the things I received/retrieved at Christmas-time was my mother's copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It is a volume which I purchased for her as a gift back when I was in high school and worked at the local public library. [Somewhere is her copy of MtAoFC Volume 2, but my siblings have not found it yet, which was also a gift.]

I saw the movie (and loved it), and then went and read Julia's My Life in France before tackling the Julie Powell book. I think that having seen the movie first, and having read Julia's book before Julie's book, helped me enjoy the Julie/Julia project better.

Now, I will also admit that my memory of the Julia book (i.e., MtAoFC) had been of my mother making Lobster Bisque (which is not in volume 1, and must be in volume 2).

Later this summer, I will be retrieving some items from my storage locker in Wisconsin which includes a kitchen Dutch Oven which will let me try some of the recipes in this volume.

Would I ever do what Julie Powwell did? No way! Do I admire what she did? Absolutely!