![]() My circle of intimates and I are not alone in our easy familiarity. Heavily tilted toward French cuisine, as all cutting-edge American dining was in those years, it was referred to in my family’s home, and later in the homes of friends, as it is now and will be forevermore in mine, simply as “Craig Claiborne.” Never mind that unlike the works of Julia Child, that other towering figure of midcentury cookery whose books were known more readily by their author’s name than by their cumbersome titles, The New York Times Cookbook (1961) was a compilation of other people’s recipes, culled from the Times between 19, rather than the author’s (the editor’s, really) own. By then, Claiborne’s venerable tome was more than thirty years old-when I was growing up, its simple navy-blue cover with the gilded spine, long stripped of the dust jacket, was a regular sight in my mother’s kitchen. ![]() ![]() The creamy, mussel-studded concoction “may well be the most elegant and delicious soup ever created,” according to 1950s food guru Craig Claiborne, and one taste of it in a friend’s kitchen is what sent me to a bookstore some fifteen years ago in search of a copy of The New York Times Cookbook. ![]()
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