A Review of "Noir Bar: Cocktails Inspired by the World of Film Noir" by Eddie Muller

 

Not every book can help you fill your Nick and Nora coupes and your evening’s film-watching playlist, but Noir Bar does both with elan. That’s not too surprising given the author is Eddie Muller, host of Turner Classic Movies’ Noir Alley, on which he curates and provides intros to generally 1940s noir from well-known classics like The Big Sleep to the B-est of B-pictures, like The Devil Thumbs a Ride. Although the book is full of gorgeous photography from the shadow-soaked films to the shots of the drinks, it’s not just some coffee table symbol of class. On the facing page to the Contents there’s a still of little known Virginia Field from even lesser known Dial 1119, and while there’s a quote from Arlen & Mercer’s “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road,” it alludes to Ida Lupino singing the ballad in Road House. Take that, Ol’ Blue Eyes.

Care to read the rest then do so at the California Review of Books.

The review was also posted at the Santa Barbara Independent on April 30, 2024.

Living the Lyrical Life with Nigella Lawson

 

Being famous can get in the way of how good you are. Take the case of Nigella Lawson, who has sold more than 12 million books worldwide and is on so many “successful television programs,” as her bio proclaims, that she’s “a household name around the world.” 

 But she’s not just a comely face on our bookshelves and small screens, and no one should discount the power of her writing. Take this passage in her latest book, Cook, Eat, Repeat: “I do so love a crumble. I don’t just mean to eat, but also to make. When I stand at the kitchen countertop, with my hands immersed in cool flour, fluttering my fingers against the cold cubes of butter to turn these two disparate ingredients into one light pile of soft and sandy flakes, I feel, at one and the same time, that I’m not only repeating a process but reliving the memory of all the times I’ve done so before, and yet utterly immersed in the present, alive only in a sensation of flour and butter in my fingers, as they scutter about the bowl.”

Care to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.