Pot on the Fire: Further Confessions of a Renegade Cook

Pot on the Fire is the latest collection from "e;the most enticingly serendipitous voice on the culinary front since Elizabeth David and M.F.K.

Fisher"e; (Connoisseur). As the title suggests, it celebrates-and, in classic Thorne style, ponders, probes, and scrutinizes-a lifelong engagement with the elements of cooking, and elemental cooking from cioppino to kedgeree.

John Thorne's curiosity ranges far and wide, from nineteenth-century famine-struck Ireland to the India of the British Raj, from the Italian cucina to the venerable American griddle.

Whether on the trail of a mysterious Vietnamese sandwich ("e;Banh Mi and Me"e;) or "e;The Best Cookies in the World,"e; whether "e;Desperately Resisting Risotto"e; or discovering the perfect breakfast, Thorne is an erudite and intrepid guide who, in unveiling the gastronomic wonders of the world, also reveals us to ourselves.