Book: Food Heroes

Food Heroes: 16 Culinary Artisans Preserving Tradition

by Georgia Pellegrini '03 | 240 pp. Abrams. $24.95.

A shoutout to '03, and an alumna some of you may know -- Georgia Pellegrini -- which profiles sixteen foodies around the world.

Here's an excerpt from her blog that describes the book:

The pace of rural life in the south of France was an exercise in extreme patience for someone who had the current of New York City coursing through her veins. I lived in a run-down house crowded with frogs and cobwebs set back into a deep field along the Rhône river. I slept under a tablecloth I took from the restaurant and woke to the sulfur smell of the marsh every morning, a particular Camargue charm that I never did get used to. My head spun with French words, the French language a thousand little dots in my head, which connected at random moments, while rolling out pasta dough or pulling heads off sardines.

As I worked in all of these restaurants I found that I was much more interested in the people who came to the kitchens to drop off their goods, than I was peeling and deseeding grapes with a paper clip. I often befriended these people and when I had a free day, would visit them at their olive oil vineyards, or in their farm that housed 160 varieties of figs, or in the woods where they foraged.

The blog also has a ton of recipes from her food travels and links to buy the book. Ale cuisine!