Steal the Menu: A Memoir of Forty Years in Food [Paperback]

Part autobiography, part culinary history, Steal the Menu is former New York Times food editor Raymond Sokolov’s account of four decades of eating. From his pathbreaking dispatches on nouvelle cuisine in France to finding top-notch Chinese dishes at a New Jersey gas station to picking the brain of the most Michelin-starred chef in the world, Sokolov captures the colorful characters and mouth watering meals that define food today. Throughout, he shares a lifetime of  personal anecdotes, including infuriating President Nixon’s daughter over a wedding cake, as well as prescient observations on one of the most tumultuous—and exciting—periods in gastronomic history.“[Sokolov] has had ‘a front seat’ at the worldwide revolution in cooking and eating. . . . Watching his formidable mind at work deconstructing nouvelle cuisine or creating a taxonomy of French sauces, it becomes clear just how he has kept that seat for so long.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“Peppered with reflections on culinary history and tales of extraordinary journalistic adventures . . . a thought-provoking and delightful read.” 
—Fuchsia Dunlop, author of Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking

“Mouthwatering. . . . [Sokolov] gives the food scene an often fascinating historical context.” —Daily Beast

“[A] ranging history of American food, and the sociopolitical events that shaped it. . . . [Sokolov is] a down-home guy at heart, happiest when correcting assumptions about everyday foods . . . and remembering treks through the heartland in search of the country’s best barbecue. . . . A pleasure.” &mdal3/