The Food Life: Inside the World of Food with the Grocer Extraordinaire at Fairway [Hardcover]

Steven Jenkins (Author), Mitchel London (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2008

From Fairway Market's master buyer and author of the hugely successful Cheese Primer comes a celebration of the store's extravagant food collection and the stories surrounding its culture.

Fairway, a local institution in New York City for more than fifty years, is the busiest food store in the world. There shoppers can find innumerable artisanal food products, which, for three decades, Steven Jenkins has traveled the world to find. With a wonderful narrative and anecdotes from the man who personally brought so many of the world's greatest foods to New York and the United States, readers will become more enthusiastic shoppers and better cooks. Jenkins's longtime associate, Mitchel London, provides recipes that will attract not only Fairway customers but any home cook who has access to great ingredients.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. This enormously enjoyable meditation on subjects like Spanish olive oil, bagels "boiled in city tap water" and the varieties of Italian pork products was penned by the cheese guru behind New York City's Fairway Market, who published in 1996 a definitive cheese encyclopedia (Cheese Primer). Less didactic, but written in the same hard-bitten but friendly style, Jenkins brings wry good humor to his chronicle of the Fairway grocery empire, following his progress from a single, smallish outlet on Manhattan's Upper West Side to a four-warehouses-and-counting institution. Along the way, he introduces readers to the countless characters, headaches and small pleasures that constitute life in the grocery business. Who knew how much work went into creating the perfect olive display? Or how much aggravation is involved in importing raw-milk cheese? Or how hard it is to maneuver cases of dairy products, especially at four in the morning? A handful of terrifically appealing recipes accompany the text, nailing just about every specialty a food lover could crave: Sauteed Veal Chop with Arugula Salad, Classic Creamy Mashed Potatoes, Lentils with Garlic Sausage, and a heavenly Rustic Apple Tart with Crème Fraiche. Among the recipes, the charming photographs, and the detailed Fairway lore, this book may convince some foodies to move to New York City-or least to do all their grocery shopping there.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“To have the Fairway Market and Cafe in our midst is a blessing…We are now Fairway veterans.” (Frances McDormand, actress, and Joel Coen, director )

“Steve’s a walking catalogue of his own life, much of which has been spent inside of Fairway, which makes this book invaluable.” (Tim Blake Nelson, actor )

“Steven Jenkins and Mitchel London have teamed up to write a book on food. Steven writes well and Mitchel cooks superbly. Believe me, you are in for a treat.” (Ed Koch, former Mayor of New York City )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Ecco; First Edition edition (July 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061231681
• ISBN-13: 978-0061231681
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,403,800 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The most effusive, hyperbolic food book ever, in any universe., December 25, 2008

By 

ducksredux (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Food Life: Inside the World of Food with the Grocer Extraordinaire at Fairway (Hardcover)

I grew up sandwiched between Fairway and Zabars. I discovered cheese thanks to Steve Jenkins' defunct column on starchefs.com. I've read The Cheese Primer cover to cover multiple times. But this book didn't make good use of his talents. When he writes about cheese he is excellent - when he writes about most other subjects he is effusive. The chapter on olive oil doesn't talk about the tastes of olive oil, merely about what is not real olive oil and the various scams in the business. His language is hyperbolic when he discusses the various Fairway brand olive oils: "We consider this oil, if not the most delicious we have ever tasted, at least among the top three." That isn't accurate. Fairway brand olive oils are very good oils, and an extremely good value, but none of them are "the most delicious." The Fairway in Red Hook "might be the most dramatic piece of real estate in New York." etc. etc. The book suffers from these repeated exaggerations. But here is Steve talking about cheese: "If on the other hand, I behold an exterior in some natural shade; if it has a toadlike skin or a pebbly surface or deer antlers' velvet, a surface that begs to be stroked or is cloaked in gray gingham or is stippled or tattoed over every square inch with its name and provenance..." - now that kind of writing makes me have to cover my lap with the book and think unsexy thoughts so I can stand up again.
So it's a mixed bag. More chat and hype than substance, which is a shame since he is clearly quite capable of writing substantively about substances.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Steven Jenkins has done it again, July 21, 2008

By 

Brook Hurst (Seattle) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Food Life: Inside the World of Food with the Grocer Extraordinaire at Fairway (Hardcover)

Both funny and fascinating, Steven Jenkins' account of the day-to-day running of this amazing grocery store is a real page turner for foodies. Having read "Cheese Primer" I knew the quality of his writing style already, but I wasn't prepared for this book to read almost like fiction. The cast of characters are every bit as interesting as the products they promote.
Mitchel London's wonderful recipes are a delightful bonus to an already satisfying read.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bacon in book form, July 1, 2008

By 

Amy Axler "Yenta" (New York City) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Food Life: Inside the World of Food with the Grocer Extraordinaire at Fairway (Hardcover)

This book is a funny fast and irreverent guide. You can learn enough about all sorts of comestibles, though the author wouldn't use a pretentious word like comestibles when a simple clear one like FOOD would do, to impress your friends or just feel a little more secure throwing your next dinner party. Like all the best books about food it teaches you a lot about the local culture. Sounds like there's more culture in the cheese dept than in the aisles of Fairway. It's a book worth buying because you feel smarter when you're done, unlike some of the claptrap that's been written about gracious living and good eating. Unlike shopping at Fairway, which now approaches a blood sport, it doesn't matter if you lose your place the book is just as good when you go back. If you're planning a trip to NYC it's an indispensable volume.