“Toward the end of February 1954, James Beard was at work in his Greenwich Village kitchen doing what he most loved to do: cooking delicious meals.” — Laura Shapiro Copy Share Image
“Julia’s attitude toward British food—that it was inedible, that it had little relevant history apart from being inedible, and that a more sensible population… — Laura Shapiro Copy Share Image
“Any morsel that wasn’t low-calorie was “sinful,” “naughty,” “gobble gobble gobble,” “heavy sinning,” or “a cruel but devastating lover.” Just” — Laura Shapiro Copy Share
“Tell me what you ate when you were a child, and whether the memory cheers you up or not.” — Laura Shapiro Copy Share Image
“These new friends had fought for suffrage, they had won, and now they were determined to use the vote to advance women’s interests. They did not define themselves by their achievements as wives. Their zeal, their brains, their integrity, the inspiring vision they brought to politics—all of it was thrilling to Eleanor. The activists she met in the 1920s became… — Laura Shapiro Copy Share
“At Cornell she had discovered that domesticity had a brain; here, in the beloved, safe home that was entirely hers, she was learning that… — Laura Shapiro Copy Share Image
“I had erected someone outside myself who was the President’s wife. I was lost somewhere deep down inside myself. That is the way I felt and worked until I left the White House.” It was “the President’s wife” who took charge of White House cuisine, and “the President’s wife” who allowed Mrs. Nesbitt to strip the food of character and… — Laura Shapiro Copy Share
“Hitler’s aide, used to see her sitting with Hitler in his study at night, wearing a dressing gown, having champagne while he drank tea.” — Laura Shapiro Copy Share Image
“To be a wife was to cook. Not to eat—that was a different matter entirely—but to cook.” — Laura Shapiro Copy Share Image
“But what struck me as I followed the paper trail through each life was that while extraordinary circumstances produce extraordinary women, food makes them… — Laura Shapiro Copy Share Image
“Her favorite place to watch human behavior was a restaurant, for there she could sit quietly in the background while people interacted with food.… — Laura Shapiro Copy Share Image
“Culinary historians looking back at the first decades of the twenty-first century will be blessed with vast quantities of material to study, thanks to… — Laura Shapiro Copy Share Image
“We’re meant to read the lives of important people as if they never bothered with breakfast, lunch, or dinner, or took a coffee break,… — Laura Shapiro Copy Share Image
