 The Taste of Sweet: Our Complicated Love Affair with Our
Favorite Treats by Joanne Chen, examines how desserts have been manipulated into being something negative instead of
positive. Chen see sweets as a way to
bring people together, rather than drive them away from something seen as fattening
and unhealthy. In the introduction, she
immediately gets on the defense on what exactly she plans to discuss throughout
the book, “When people heard that I was working on a book about sweets, they
assumed one of two things: I was either producing an expose on junk food or
creating one of those beautifully photographed dessert books. Neither could be farther from the truth,
since I am a firm believer in consuming king-sized chocolate bars and hardly a
gourmet.” The complicated part comes in
throughout the book, in her thorough description of sugar as a scientific
aspect of a type of food rather than an ingredient. It’s not difficult to get lost in translation
here, but in this case, the ends justify the means.
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 Casson Trenor’s new book “Sustainable Sushi: A Guide to Saving the Oceans One Bite at a Time” is not the sushi bar buzz kill the title suggests. Trenor starts out with a welcome disclaimer: “Let me ease your fears: I am not going to tell you to stop eating fish.” You can have your maki and eat it too, but some choices are certainly better than others. Trenor’s book is one in a long line of “sustainable” literature, and his belief that less is more, coupled with vegetarian options towards the end of the book, hearkens back to Bittman’s stance on meat in “Food Matters.” Though his subject is niche at best, with very few Americans capable of ordering sushi regularly, it is nonetheless an important topic to tackle. Increased demand for seafood equals increased risk of overfishing, or of harvesting the most from our oceans regardless of the ecological price tag.
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 Frommer’s 500 places for Food & Wine Lovers is
certainly a book worth skimming, especially if you’re an avid traveler. Divided
by categories ranging from food museums to seafood shacks, this is an all
encompassing foodie guide, from Baltimore to Bangkok. It’s not necessary to
read cover to cover, instead, search by specific categories or country.
The true weakness of the book, besides some factual
errors (Nobu 57 is not instead the Time Warner Building and does not sit next
to Per Se, that would be Masa…and why is there a picture of Guy Fieri on page
195?), is that it could really use some color pictures to make the food
photography that much more exciting—the confections from Hotel-Restaurant Troisgros
in the Loire Valley look incredible, but only if we could see them in something
other than grayscale.
Even if a lot of the entries aren’t exactly
off-the-beaten-path (New York’s Chinatown?), they are still food destinations
worth visiting. Moreover, the book allows for a list of all those “oh yeah, I
heard of that place” to be found in one comprehensive volume. No matter what
category or region you choose to browse, you will surely be salivating from
something, whether it is the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo or a list of the best
ribs in Memphis.
-Carey Polis
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 Every year on Cinco de Mayo, we plan to go out on the town
and celebrate a holiday that most of us see as yet another excuse to drink
heavily during the day. We abandon our
usual drinking habits of American beers and European liquors, and stick with alcohol
strictly south of the border, in the form of margaritas, tequila shots and the
ever refreshing sangria. This
year, instead of sticking with what you’re used to, here are some different drink
recipes to celebrate this festive day. Photo: epicurean.com
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 For the past couple of months,
the buzz around the New York City food scene has been surrounded around two
words: Bahn mi. A Vietnamese sandwich
with pork, pickled vegetables, cucumbers and chili peppers inside a crunchy
baguette, has gained a lot of hype, especially with the rapid opening of three
branches of Baoguette. Over 15 bahn mi
restaurants have opened since the start of the year in Manhattan and Brooklyn,
and at first it was like a strange new adventure that everybody was in love
with. Unfortunately for this pork-filled
creation, the honey moon is over. Chefs and critics
are already starting to fall off the wagon, saying that it’s not all it’s cracked
up to be, and I don’t blame them. It’s a
good sandwich, but as one would say about gas station sushi, I’ve had better.
And not only from restaurants, but also in the comfort of my own kitchen. Here are some sandwiches that are totally
better than the bahn mi:
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