Weekend Cooking: One Last Lunch, ed. by Erica Heller

Here’s a book that has a little something for everyone--not only us foodies but also anyone who dreams about having "A Final Meal with Those Who Meant So Much to Us."

One Last Lunch, edited by Erica Heller, is a collection of about 50 short pieces written by chefs, actors, writers, comedians, and more as well as friends and relatives of well-known late-celebrities. The concept is simple, a variety of people were asked to imagine they had one last meal with someone who meant a lot to them or who influenced them.

If you had been asked, whom would you invite to lunch? What would you talk about? Where would you eat? What would you eat?

I wasn't too surprised by the number of people who wrote about meals with immediate family, for example, Erica Heller and Kirk Douglas wrote about their fathers and Malachy McCourt and Rick Moody wrote about their siblings. Others imaged meals with their mentors (Sara Moulton chose Julia Child), friends (Richard Lewis picked Jonathan Winters), and acquaintances (Bob Balaban picked Groucho Marx).

For me, One Last Lunch is the kind of book to read piecemeal and out of order. I started with names I recognized, either the person writing the story (Caroline Leavitt, Kirk Douglas, Benjamin Cheever) or the person invited to lunch (Paul Newman, Marcella Hazan, Lou Reed). Some stories are about a real lunch and some about an imagined meal; some pieces are essays, some are plays, and some are lists; all are short, intimate, and engaging.

Food and drink, of course, play a big part in the essays, but so do conversation, memory, and thoughts about the afterlife. One Last Lunch will make you think and will make you smile and cry.

Thanks so much to the Abrams Dinner Party for sending me a copy. I’ve read maybe a third of the pieces and am looking forward to the rest.

Shared with Weekend Cooking, hosted by Marg at The Intrepid Reader (and Baker)