Maybe not. Maybe the resources I question are a later, hipper addition for commercial publication. Do they still say "hip"?
Miller's book is the first I have read that makes flagrant reference to using the Web and email (what, no SMS?) for research. The book is designated "Cooking,” but it is not a cookbook and contains few recipes. With a subtitle like A Celebration of Flour, Sugar, Butter, Eggs, Vanilla, Baking Powder, and a Pinch of Salt, you might expect detailed baking instructions. No, it is the story of an unresolved case of substance abuse. The addictive substance happens to be sugar in the form of frosting on cakes. She eats cans of frosting, minus the cake. But you can't write a book just about cake frosting, right?
Perhaps reflecting the sugar high Miller must live on, the book jumps about in time, space, and topic. It is disorienting and disorganized. Some chapters are only one page in length. The table of contents offers no map, being organized into eight sections called "Tiers" and 45 chapter titles like "Losing Isn't Everything" or "Dessert.” When isn't cake dessert?
The tidbits about cake stuffed between layers of Miller's mind are interesting for anyone who likes to cook. If it weren't for the excellent citations and references in the Notes section, this wouldn't find space on my shelf of cookbooks. Maybe I'll keep it in the office instead, as reference material on, well, references. My plans for writing a book about authentic cooking are solidifying like margarine in the fridge.
Article comments
1 - Leslie F. Miller
Thank you for reviewing the book. I think. You really only spoke about the things you didn't like, so I wouldn't call it mixed or ambivalent.
I do want to point out that times have changed, and this is evidenced no more by a bibliography that shows ample internet research (also ample personal interviews and ample book researchâ€"ample everything, with that many notes) than it is by the fact that you are writing a review for a blog and not a newspaper or magazine.
All research these days begins with a simple Google search. It doesn't end there, but scholarly journals and magazines and online food librarians should not be discounted because they are online any more than your review should because discounted because it is online.
I'm still curious to know what you might have liked about the book!
2 - Leslie F. Miller
(Sorry about the glitch aboveâ€""than your review should be discounted because it is online."
Darn the laptop.
3 - Georganna Hancock
@ Ms. Miller:
The system ate my earlier comments. They went something like this:
Thank you for your comment, which is fair enough. I think I mentioned liking some parts. But for more: I enjoyed the parts about your cooking legacy from your family, especially bits about your grandmother.
Couldn't you tell I really, really love the references in the Notes?
I certainly don't discount experts online, just citations of anonymous sources; and I'm crushed, simply crushed that you assume I won't review your book in a paper publication.