Around the World

Going through second hand stores in the West Village, I always feel like all the good finds have been found, but the other day in Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks in the West Village, I found a copy of Time-Life Foods of the World: Latin American Cooking that looks like it could have been the sole reference book in  Life Aquatic galley kitchen.  Written by Jonathan Norton Leonard with photographs by Milton Greene, it’s one in a series of 27 books published in 1968 that I wished someone in my family had acted now to order.

Filled with recipes like Mexican chiles en nogada, Peruvian chancho adobado, and Brazilian crema de abacate alongside over-saturated images of candy making convents and ladies who lunch, it’s a combination of simple, traditional food and late-sixties baroque.  If I don’t find at least one occasion to turn a pineapple into an ice bucket this summer, I will be very disappointed.