Acquisitions Department: Brunch

Acquisitions Department: Brunch

I came home from work to find that Amazon had delivered: Brunch : 100 Recipes from Five Points Restaurant, by Marc Meyer and Peter Meehan. Yes, you read that right—I actually bought a book. It’s a rare and unusual occurrence for me, since eighteen years in the publishing industry has set me up with book fairies who’ll give me almost anything I want for free, but sometimes you just have to have something, fairies be damned. (Besides, I don’t know anyone at Universe, Brunch‘s publisher.)

Why this particular book? Well, three reasons. First, Five Points is one of my favorite restaurants. It’s up there with the Red Cat for a guaranteed good time, with truly wonderful food. Chef Marc Meyer is famous for his brunch, so this was a natural subject for the restaurant’s first cookbook. Second, I know Peter Meehan, Meyer’s coauthor—not well, but he’s a friend of a friend and he’s been very kind to me in my efforts to expand my food writing horizons. In fact, we met for drinks once at Five Points, and he introduced me to both Marc and Marc’s wife, Vicki (and let me tell you, they adore Peter). Peter and I broke our shad roe cherries together that night, when Marc convinced us to try his version, fried in a sort of croquette. It was lovely. So I’ll gladly buy a book by Peter, any day of the week. And third, as you may have noticed from the number of breakfasty posts on this blog, I’m a huge fan of that meal. 100 new recipes to try! Are you kidding? Of course I bought it.

Naturally I haven’t cooked anything from it yet, but just leafing through the pages I can already tell I’m going to love using this cookbook. It’s freakin’ gorgeous, for one thing, with some of the tastiest-looking food photography I’ve ever seen (all by Ben Fink). And it’s got the same great, casual-but-serious-about-food vibe as the restaurant. I can’t wait for the weekend, so I can get cooking!