Customer Reviews

Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

`Insatiable' is a collection of anecdotal memoirs by Ms. Gael Greene of the overshadowingly broad brimmed hats and long time food writer and restaurant critic of `New York' magazine. While the 51 chapters do touch on Ms. Greene's life before `New York', they generally stay very close to their `New York' wellspring, her column, named `The Insatiable Gourmet' by magazine editor in chief, Clay Felker.

The most immediate comparison which comes to mind is to the three volumes of memoirs by current `Gourmet' editor in chief, Ruth Reichl who, for several years, sat in Craig Claiborne's chair as principle restaurant reviewer for `The New York Times' and whose most recent book, `Garlic and Sapphires' deals entirely with her `New York Times' restaurant reviews and her tactics for maintaining her anonymity while in the hunt for excellence at New York's finer eateries. And, as similar as these two women's careers may be, the differences make both bodies of work that much more interesting.

While Reichl, the younger of the two by at least a decade, grew up in New York City and learned French at a very early age, her professional culinary journalistic career was shaped on the west coast, firmly under the influence of the American food vanguard lead by the California vintners, Alice Waters, Jeremiah Tower, and Wolfgang Puck. Greene grew up in provincial Detroit, but had her culinary instincts formed by the emerging community of French restaurants in New York City. Her center of culinary gravity was in the dining rooms, kitchens, and cellars of the great French culinary establishment. She even admits that she came late to the California culinary movement. To her credit, as soon as she had her first experience of Alice Waters' cuisine at `Chez Panisse', she recognized that there was something important going on by the Pacific coast.

Reichl's first two volumes of memoirs are more strictly biographical than `Insatiable' in that they are strictly chronological. Reichl's revelations about her life are also unusual to me, at the time, for the remarkable candor about her sexual life. Madame Reichl was a Den Mother compared to Ms. Greene, whose title refers not only to her culinary appetites, but to her sexual appetites as well. I won't dwell on this much, but her exploits make me and most average Americans feel like monks or nuns in comparison.

These sexual exploits include dozens of famous figures from the culinary world, but they also include several notables from Hollywood. As a hint, I will reveal that Ms. Greene tells the tales of how she landed in bed with two very big leading men, both of whom appeared together on the cover of `Time' magazine. And yet, Ms. Greene can be remarkably circumspect about the details of many liaisons.

It is interesting to see the difference in reaction to some of the major figures both have met. Danny Kaye appears in both narratives, however, he is a much bigger part in Ms. Greene's story, as does James Beard, Julia Child, Craig Claiborne, Pierre Franey, and M.F.K. Fisher, as Ms. Greene was able to encounter all these people while they were still at or near their prime, unlike Ms. Reichl, who did not arrive in the `big time' at the `Times' until most of these people were retired or gone. The stories regarding Danny Kaye are especially nice, as I have been pining for more information on his culinary abilities ever since I read Ms. Reichl's report of a dinner he prepared in his custom build `kitchen theatre'.

Ms. Greene also fills in a lot of information on some of the more romantically interesting figures in the culinary world. For example, when one reads other accounts of the lives of `Le Bernardin' founders, Gilbert and Maguy LeCoze, you are left with the feeling that their closeness can only be explained by a particularly `unnatural' sexual relation. Miss Gael assures us in no uncertain terms that both Gilbert and Maguy were decidedly conventional (At least for young French natives) in their sexual behavior, each with their own one or more partners, including, for Gilbert, Ms. Greene herself now and then. She also sheds light on the fact that suspicions to the contrary, Pierre Franey was a complete heterosexual, with no erotic connection to culinary colleague, the well-known homosexual, Craig Claiborne.

One feature of New York dining on which Ms. Greene and Ms. Reichl agree is that most of the high end venues are far too inclined to give preferential treatment to favorite customers, most of which are celebrities. One of the most disagreeable cases appears in the chapter about the literary watering hole, `Elaine's' which became popular among celebs almost by accident, when `Harper's' editor Nelson Aldrich (not even Nelson Algren), wandered in and stayed awhile, bringing a few other literary luminaries along in later visits. And, while we are less likely to be inconvenienced by this, this is just as true of Parisian venues as those in the Big Apple.

Like Ms. Reichl, Ms. Greene sprinkles in a few recipes here and there, after every second or third chapter. These are interesting, but I found her passing remarks about dishes within her text to be far more evocative, as when one New York maestro filled a baked potato with creamed chipped beef and how Gilbert LeCoze prepared such simple fish dishes, because he never received the kind of training which showed him how to do elaborate preparations (Under Eric Ripert, `Le Bernardin' is still a temple to simple, fresh fish cooking).

While Ms. Reichl's last book may be more interesting to the serious foodie as it deals in much more detail with the specific restaurants, reviews, and events surrounding her researches, Ms. Greene's book has far more interesting and far more lascivious information about the lives and loves of the culinary great in New York and France.

A delicious tart of a read!

I absorb "foodie" books at the rate that some breathe. Reichl, Bourdain, Child, Buxton and others are the source of hours of fond distraction from my too-busy-to-do-anything life and my aspirations to understand food the way I understand my professional work -- intuitively, technically and personally.

I had read that this book was more of a bawdy personal history than others, but I always adore the personal details of the writers, and am hardly a prude. Nevertheless, I could hardly muster an ounce of empathy for the gratuitous sexual self-objectification of the author who viewed restaurants more as stars in a social strata than producers of cuisine. I did not care about her tortured relationship with a porn star, whom she fed and bedded on her employer's dime. I grew exasperated as she ended a chapter about three marriages with a confession that she wrote it without understanding the point, and still, after writing it and choosing to include it in her book, she did not. The simple reality is that a writer is speaking to a reader, and Ms. Green's reader appeared to be...Ms. Green. While it is apparent that others enjoyed this book, I would suspect that a day with "Garlic and Sapphires" would disabuse anyone of the notion that this is a delightful memoir, and instead expose it for the indulgence that it is.

If Reichl's memoirs were a nourishing meal, then Greene's is a bag of chips. Reichl's trilogy about her life in food is ultimately about developing relationships, and discovering how to make a meaningful life.

Greene's book, in contrast, reads as a series of lists 1) foods she has eaten 2) men she has slept with 3) celebrities she has known. There is no real character development, nor any personal insights.

True, she has enjoyed amazing, sumptious meals, but to what end? There is no meaning to her life beyond the endless quest for rich meals on her employer's dime. Her sexual appetite, although clearly prodigious, leads her to make empty choice after empty choice. Some people will wish that they shared Greene's luck that allowed her to live a completely self-indulgent life. But most sensible people will be grateful that they haven't haven't wasted every moment pursuing nothing.

An empty life leads to an empty book--a bit ironic considering the title. Reichl's books, though far less sexual, are fare more sensual and satisfying.

I was so looking forward to another food critic's life story like Ruth Reichl's Garlic and Sapphire - one of the best books I have ever read.

I was seriously dissappointed. I realize that at the time Greene became a food critic, critics were well known by the restauranteurs and treated like Queens with special menus the rest of the people dining did not ever see, but I had no idea how bad it was. To think everyones opinion was determined by a few egotistical food critics in New York who never ate the way the rest of the people did is disgusting. Couple this with her flamboyant use of her magazines money to pay for all her meals (and her lovers meals) and you can't find a reason to enjoy the true life of Gael Greene.

Frankly, for me, her little splurge with a porn star was the most interesting part of the book, but then she would move on to sleep with the very chefs she was reviewing.

Halfway through the book it became a real snore with very little mention of food - which is why a foodie would buy such a book. Instead it was one celebrity name after another, one bit of gossip after another and list after list of names of chefs and all their restaurants and if they made it or not. It was more one long dull gossip column than a book.

As a restaurant critic Gael Greene has had a life full of delicious meals, interesting travels and exciting encounters with the opposite sex, and not only. Her memoir captures both her life and the paths of her career but also the history of food and how it's importance evolved throughout the years. The book however does not focus on food. The descriptions of different types of food and restaurants accompanied by some deliciously -looking recipes are very well balanced with the descriptions of sometimes quite saucy relationships of the author.
I thought it was a fun and interesting memoir showing a slightly different approach to a lot of things... To summarize the book I would just say - very spicy!!! And I'm not only talking about the food here...

Will I ever finnish this tedious tome? An excess of ego and pointless information. Ruth Reichel's exsquiste "Comfort Me with Apples" benefitted from a genius of editing, I longed for more. With Insatiable I want less. Ms. Greene sometimes writes about food as if it were ad copy.

I had to laugh when she wonders after her second one night stand with Clint Eastwood "I wondered if there could have been something more beyond the hotel room that night"....

I would urge anyone interested in food writing and personalities worth spending time with to read all three of Ruth Reichel's memiors, any of MFK Fisher, and Amanda Hesser's "Cooking for Mr. Latte". A rewarding read awaits you.

I found this so disappointing after "Garlic and Sapphires". Now Ruth maynot be entirely the lovely soft warm and cosy food writer this book presents her to be, but I am completely convinced that Gael Greene is the egotistical self-satisfied "foodie" that her writing inadvertently and occasionally advertently reveals her to be.

I found this a dull read - her sexual exploits were presented so smugly and without eroticism that I found the passages dull by the end, and so many of her foodie anecdotes (as she tells us so many times she is a foodie, just in case we didn't work it out) seem to be included just because she has done the research or recalled the restaurant and can't bear to leave it out. whether it is of interest wasn't a relevant litmus test apparently.

In fact, smugness pervades the entire book, and even her excellent work with Citymeals on Wheels doesn't reprieve the whiff of the self-satisfied, over-fed epicure she appears to be.

This book lacks the humanity of "Garlic and Sapphires" while managing to be far more intimate and revealing about the author than I think even she intended.

Avoid it.

Whoa, this badly written, unsexy epic could have used some serious editing. I'm surprised, since I've enjoyed GG's witty reviews, but there's hardly an amusing line in this tome, which mostly chronicles Greene's narcissistic pursuit of celebs to wine, dine, and bed her. Talk about TMI! You'll come away from these pages feeling like you've eaten mediocre swill at an overrated restaurant; Greene evidently had all the depth of a finger bowl. I agree with others that Reichl's memoirs -- not to mention Fisher's and Child's -- are far, far better reads.

Talk about a plum job! Gael Greene has enjoyed the finest cuisine the world has to offer for some three decades, and all she has to do is write about it. Jealous? Not in the least bit - that is until she shared the names of her bevy of lovers which includes Burt Reynolds, Clint Eastwood and, yes, The King himself, Elvis. According to Greene all Elvis did was saunter in, lie down on the bed and wait. Best advice for you is not to wait a moment longer before listening to Insatiable, Greene's funny, frank, frolic of a bio.

As most know, Greene is New York's vaunted food critic, eating her way through the city's toniest establishments and dining in France - on her employer's money. Seems it was 1968 when Clay Felker of New York Magazine discovered her in the Motor City and brought her to the Big Apple. It wasn't long before Felker dubbed her "the insatiable critic." Wonder if he knew just how accurate that was.

Freely admitting to a "certain compulsive bedability," she gleefully blended lovers and Lutece, all of which makes for spicy listening. Narrator Nancy Travis does a superb turn with the slightly quirky Greene's tale of her pursuit of life's pleasures.

And, yes, recipes are included.

5 star restaurants, 5 star swains, and most certainly 5 star listening.

- Gail Cooke

For years, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Gael Greene's restaurant reviews in the New York Magazine. Her ability to rhapsodize, finesse, and romance dining experiences was a weekly event I looked forward to savoring and "tasting" vicariously while living my MidWest-quiet life. However, although receiving very positive reviews in the New York Times, I found "Insatiable" to be tedious, boring - with a touch of "too much information." There was nothing endearing about the chronicle and I realized I was speed reading, checking page numbers hoping I'd get to the end. A Ruth Reichel this is not.