by Ian Kelly (2004)
"A unique feast of biography and Regency cookbook, Cooking for Kings takes readers on a culinary tour of the palaces of Britain and Europe in the ultimate age of gastronomic indulgence, when, for the first time, chefs became celebrities and the modern restaurant was born." "Drawing on the legendary cook's rich memoirs, Ian Kelly traces Antonin Careme's meteoric rise from a child abandoned on the streets of revolutionary Paris to international celebrity and provides a dramatic below-stairs perspective on one of the most momentous, and sensuous, periods in European history - First Empire Paris, Georgian England, and the Russia of War and Peace - when emperors, kings, and princes wielded Careme's gastronomy as a diplomatic tool." "Careme was much more than the inventor of the chef's hat, the vol-au-vent, and the souffle. He had an unfailing ability to cook for the right people in the right place at the right time. He knew the foibles and the favorite dishes of the Romanovs, the Rothschilds, and Rossini. He worked for the gourmet-king George IV, the Viennese court, and even made Napoleon's wedding cake. But Careme's reputation rested ultimately on a novel idea that changed cooking forever: by marrying food and glamour in his books - which transported readers to the tables of the famous households for whom he cooked - he was the first chef to become rich and famous by publishing cookbooks."--BOOK JACKET.
Gilles Pudlowski & Maurice Rougemont
Prominent restaurant critic Gilles Pudlowski leads the reader on a tour across the heartland of gourmet dining, sharing menu selections from his favourite restaurants along with the stories behind the accomplished chefs and their kitchens.
Peter Kurth
"Never before has Isadora Duncan's life been so engagingly explored. Biographer Peter Kurth recounts this sensational life filled with lavish love affairs, artistic zeal, marvelous performances, and personal tragedies. Kurth allows the free spirit and idiosyncratic personality of this passionate artist to shine through, revealing her dramatic story set against the sweeping backdrop of Europe and the United States in the early twentieth century. Kurth tells of Isadora's longtime love affairs; with English designer Gordon Craig, father of her daughter, Deirdre; with sewing-machine heir Paris Singer, father of her son, Patrick; and with Russian poet Sergei Esenin. Also on this tumultuous stage are her many friends and family, including Auguste Rodin, Jean Cocteau, Edward Steichen, Preston Sturges, Mary Desti, Mercedes de Acosta, the six "Isadorables," and the colorful Duncan clan.". "Drawing from extensive research of major archival sources in New York, San Francisco, London, Paris, Berlin, Munich, Moscow, and St. Petersburg, including several private archives and unpublished manuscripts, Peter Kurth has created a compelling portrait of an intelligent, complicated, conflicted woman. As the New York Times said of her in 1928: "It is quite certain that no other American woman has so impressed the world outside of America - made such a mighty stir, commanded such a following at home and abroad... left behind her such a legend of personality and such a trail of effects.""--BOOK JACKET.
Roy MacLaren
"During the Second World War, Canadians found themselves behind enemy lines in Europe and Asia. Not all, were ill-fated airmen shot down in the fury of battle. Some were there by design; as volunteers who risked their lives on extremely hazardous assignments." "Almost one hundred Canadians served the Allied forces by passing as locals in occupied countries. At the behest of two British secret services, these men made language and custom their costumes and wove themselves into the social fabric of France, Italy, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Burma, Malaya, and Sarawak. They risked their lives assisting resistance groups on sabotage and ambush missions or in smuggling Allied airmen out of occupied territories. Quiet heroes of the war, these Canadians helped to make the brutal and unrelenting warfare of the underground a potent weapon in the Allied arsenal."--Jacket.
Brenda James and William D. Rubinstein
Motivated by scholarship and driven by curiosity, Shakespeare historian Brenda James applied a sixteenth-century code-breaking technique to the dedication of Shakespeare's Sonnets. What she uncovered led her to the truth behind literature's greatest mystery. For more than 150 years, academics have questioned how William Shakespeare of Stratford, a man who left school at age thirteen and apparently never traveled abroad, could have written such a broad and deep body of work, one that is said to draw on the largest vocabulary of any writer in the English language. Now, in The Truth Will Out James and history professor William D. Rubinstein explore the facts behind James's important findings, detailing how her work on the dedication led to the name Sir Henry Neville, a prominent Elizabethan diplomat whose life unlocked the secrets of the Shakespeare Authorship Question once and for all. Examining the true nature of Shakespeare of Stratford's involvement with the plays, the authors reveal the London actor to be a mere pawn, while Neville, the Oxford-educated ambassador to France and a member of Parliament for twenty-eight years, was actually the Bard. Disguising his authorship to avoid bringing scandal and shame to his family name, Neville spent a great deal of time abroad in Europe, entering a realm of aristocratic intrigue and mystery that provided the foundation for some of his greatest plays. With insightful explanations of never-before-studied documents, James and Rubinstein demonstrate that not only did the refined and worldly Neville know the landscape of Shakespeare's plays firsthand but that these works represent a total convergence of the events in Neville's life. But the evidence proving Neville's authorship is not merely circumstantial. Comparing mysterious signatures and Neville's richly woven family lineage, the authors paint a portrait of a man whose claim moves beyond the speculative. An experienced politician, who was well-versed in the intrigues of the Court, Neville was locked away in the Tower of London for his part in the unsuccessful Essex Rebellion against Queen Elizabeth. Using a collection of Neville's writings from his imprisonment, James and Rubinstein provide an exhaustive cross section of the intrigue surrounding Neville's life, exposing the events that led to his hidden writings and the cloaking of their true origin. Captivating and elucidating, The Truth Will Out is a revelatory exploration of two men and their times that will forever change the landscape of Shakespearean scholarship.