Rating: 
Summary: Good book, GREAT recipes
Review: I completely enjoyed this fun, well-written, witty book. Amanda's writing makes me want to jump off the couch and whip up dish after dish, invite friends over and really enjoy life. I do not understand why some reviewers find her writing offensive- lighten up! She's honest, about herself and others, and I find her and her writing totally appealing. As I often do with a delicious dish, I found myself rationing this book so that I wouldn't finish it too quickly. What a wonderful way to spend a lazy afternoon and learn a thing or two about cooking in the meantime.
Rating: 
Summary: Started well but disappointed
Review: I had high hopes when I picked up this book - catchy title, recipes intertwined in the story line - these things seemed to bode well. I like to eat and was looking forward to reading about food and maybe picking up a few recipes. Unfortunately, I am not a gourmet and I live in "fly-over" land. The restaurant name-dropping means nothing to me and I do not walk to the grocery store to buy Meyer lemons and sea salt. The more I read of this book, the less I cared. Out of the whole book, there was only one recipe I wanted to try and that was for the meatloaf, but even then I don't seriously think that I will try to shape it into a lobster... I am positive that there are people out there who will enjoy this book, but unfortunately, I am not one of them. Thank goodness I can return it to the library.
Rating:
Summary: Delightful, Discerning Food Writing
Review: I too had long clipped out Ms. Hesser's articles in the New York Times Magazine, so imagine my delight at finding a brand new book of hers on amazon.com! (her first, The Cook and The Gardener, is a stunning repertoire of recipes and food writing, mandatory for anyone who loves a good read and a good meal!)Ms. Hesser is a talented, witty writer who laces the book with details of her developing relationship with fellow writer Tad Friend (digression: his articles for the New Yorker are also uniformly excellent- what a talented pair!) and plenty of entertaining anecdotes and snippets of her charmed life. The recipes range from quite simple (pasta with lemon and creme fraiche) to quite impressive & complex. All reveal Ms. Hesser's sophisticated palate, even a mouthwatering grilled cheese sandwich that she makes for Tad. The dozen or so recipes that I've prepared have been tasty and precise. How rare to find a book so intelligent, original and entertaining!
Rating: 
Summary: Skillful Writing with Personal Insights about Food and Life
Review: `Cooking for Mr. Latte' is a culinary journal by New York Times culinary columnist, Amanda Hesser which I would not have even noticed except that Ms. Hesser is also the author of a really exceptional culinary and horticultural diary of a year spent in a French country house, `The Cook and the Gardener'. As I gave a very favorable review to the `French book', I felt compelled to taste the quality of Ms. Hesser's writing about something much, much closer to home for both of us.
For starters, this volume is much lighter than `The Cook and the Gardener' and does little to support comparisons of Ms. Hesser's writing with that of M.F.K. Fisher. This does not mean this book is not entertaining. It most certainly is, as it has a very light touch in making interesting a life which has relatively little of the `Sturm und Drang' of, say, the self-reported personal life of Ruth Reichl.
It's odd to even come close to describing the events Ms. Hesser recounts as `ordinary', as she does prep cooking for Anne Willan, chauffeur's Julia Child to and from Orly airport in Paris, dines with Jeffrey Steingarten, and trades high signs with Bobby Flay at some of New York's more interesting eateries. This is enough to make the life of any daydreaming foodie. But, I guess even lunch at leading Manhattan restaurants can become ordinary after a while. But, a quick check of the book's index reminds me that there is practically no mention of leading culinary landmarks. The book is much more about the culinary side of the romance between Ms. Hesser and `Mr. Latte', beginning with the first blind date and ending with a very successful marriage.
What is totally reassuring about the book is in how totally normal a course this relationship plays out, with little awkwardness, occasional discomforts, and growing affections. The picture of Ms. Hesser's personal culinary life may even be more interesting to her foodie readers. For example, I strongly identify with her attitudes on time spent in the kitchen. Like her, I am often very uncomfortable with a second person with me in my relatively small kitchen while I am cooking. I also sympathize with her discomfort when cooking in someone else's kitchen, where you have trouble finding things and are wary of moving anything out of its rightful place.
One confession, which is very satisfying, is Ms. Hesser's confession that even though she has attended cooking school and writes about food professionally, she occasionally makes some serious mistakes in the kitchen.
About a third of the text in the book consists of recipes, and most of these recipes are not original with the author. Many are copied from published sources such as Julia Child's `Mastering the Art of French Cooking' and `Cooks Illustrated' magazine. Many others are recipes of friends, relatives, future relatives, and restaurants. Their interest is less as a source from which you may wish to cook as it is an illustration supporting the narrative of the events in Ms. Hesser's day. One very nice thing about the book is that while the index says nothing of Le Bernardin, Babbo, or Craft, there are extensive pointers to interesting recipes. What this means is that a recollection of an interesting recipe can take you to the text of that recipe by a simple consult with the index.
I was surprised at her take on `Cooks Illustrated', as this journal is commonly very well regarded among many food writers. It was odd that she said it contains no pictures, as it commonly has many. However, I confess to agreeing with her that their writing can often be pretty dour, as they seem to take very seriously their discovery of techniques that have been well known to practicing chefs for generations.
As the book is really dedicated to the courtship between Ms. Hesser and her future husband, please don't expect a lot of `New York Times' gossip. There is no mention of leading Times food columnists such as Mark Bittman, Nigella Lawson, or R. W. Appel, although a relatively large chunk of the foodie writing establishment is mentioned in the acknowledgments.
In spite of some parallels in the cadences of the two titles, I could find no similarities in content between this book and the novel `Looking for Mr. Goodbar'.
Hesser is a genuinely talented writer and while I think M.F.K. Fisher's reputation is not yet in any danger, I agree with the perceptive Ms. Lawson who describes the writing as `Tender, wry, passionate, truthful...' A very charming read. It will encourage me to look up Ms. Hesser's cookbook reviews and hope I find a bit more honesty than I find in the reviews in `Gourmet', `Saveur', and `Bon Appetit'. It actually gives me a little thrill to be reviewing the work of a cookbook reviewer. I look forward to learning something from Ms. Hesser's reviews.
Oh, and I thought the drawings by illustrator Izak Zenau matched the tone of the text perfectly. Nothing great, just complementary.
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