This little book - a sequel, perhaps, to the Alice B. Toklas cookbook - is charming, of course. It is an evocateur of time and place, and, yes, of taste and smell. But I love it because of the absolutely silly and even balmy introduction by Poppy Cannon, who also writes a running commentary for most recipes. We can only be grateful that she didn't have a free hand to EDIT the recipes.

This is typical of her advice to readers of Ms. Toklas' perfectly simple onion soup:

"Consider that this is said in a whisper: You can use Miss Toklas' ideas even though you resort to canned or packaged dehydrated onion soup. Use her croutons covered each with a slice of Swiss cheese. Add 1/2 cup cognac to 6 cups of soup which has been prepared in the usual way according to package directions."

Dear god.

Or how about this?

"Despite her lightly veiled disdain of deep-freeze vegetables, I have a feeling that Miss Toklas would approve of frozen artichoke hearts. They are very convenient to use in this recipe."

"Since olive oil is so expensive and rather tricky for deep-fat frying, we suggest that you use Mazola, Wesson or peanut oil instead."

Poppy was a hack. A good-natured hack.

60.

1st ed. ( )