Vignettes & Vinaigrettes

"In one entertaining anecdote after another, Durst-Wertheim gives us the dirton what it was really like to be a woman running a catering business in New YorkCity at the end of the twentieth century. Her warm-hearted stories are tough, dishy, and poignant, and tell it like it was and, no doubt, still is."
--Marion Nestle, Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at New York University, author of numerous books: Food Politics, Unsavory Truth, and Let's Ask Marion

"Carol Durst, an important New York City caterer for fifteen years starting inthe early '80s, celebrates her craft and its unsung heroes. The food industry wasmore collegial then; co-workers and fellow chefs were family. There were no bigegos; it was about getting the job done and done well-- sometimes in dauntingcircumstances. Along the way, we're also given a portrait of the city at the time, which was marked by the devastation of the AIDS crisis. It is a fascinating read."
--Sara Moulton, author of Home Cooking 101: How to Make Everything Taste Better, chef, and host of TV's Sara's Weeknight Meals

"What lively, vivid, and memorable stories of life as a New York caterer! Wewatch the author negotiate fees, shop for food, manage a crew, and oversee ambitious culinary happenings. Beautiful foods, presented with impeccable taste, compete with dramatic backstories for the reader's attention. Expect to laugh andweep with the author, wishing she were your close friend and trusted caterer, too."
--Doris Friedensohn, Professor Emerita, New Jersey City University, author of Eating as I Go, Airports Are for Waiting, and Cooking for Change.

"The author dishes on her employees, her employers, and the attributes that madeher a spectacular caterer. Each vignette presents a different facet of the industrythat she was involved with for years as her life and the food she served changed.She brings the same love, passion and humor to her prose that she once broughtto the table."
--Abigail Burnham Bloom, adjunct professor, Hunter College,
author of Geraldine Jewsbury, Leading the Way for Victorian Women